Case Study : EDWARD MARSHALL BOEHM, INC.
1) When Edward started the firm, what was his entrepreneurial strategy? Provide details and justify your answer.
2) What is the firm's current generic business strategy? Provide details and justify your answers.
3) Assume the firm wants to grow by diversification.
A. What type of diversification would you recommend and why? Provide specifics about what you would do and why.
B. Discuss how would you diversify (the means) and why, including specifics about the benefits and risks associated with the means you recommend. Provide details and justify your answers.
4) Assume the firm wants to expand into other countries.
A. What foreign market entry strategy would you recommend and why? Provide specifics about what you would do and why.
B. Discuss how would you enter the foreign markets (the mode) and why, including specifics about the benefits and risks associated with the mode you recommend. **Provide details and justify your answers.
EDWARD MARSHALL BOEHM, INC.
Edward Marshall Boehm-a farmer, veterinarian, and nature lover living near New York City-was convinced by his wife and friends to translate some of his clay animal sculptures into pieces for possible sale to the gift and art markets.
Boehm recognized that porcelain was the best medium for portraying his creations because of its translucent beauty, permanence, and fidelity of color as well as form. But the finest of the porcelains, hard paste porcelain, was largely a secret art about which little technical literature existed.
Boehm studied this art relentlessly, absorbing whatever knowledge artbooks, museums, and the few U.S. ceramic factories offered. Then, after months of experimentation in a dingy Trenton, New Jersey, basement, Boehm and some chemist friends developed a porcelain clay equal to the finest in the world.