Panasonic Toughbook: Expanding Its Market In Australia

Discuss about the Business Strategies Of Panasonic Corporation.

Panasonic Corporation is a Japanese consumer electronic goods manufacturing Multinational Corporation. Its headquarters is situated in Kadoma, Osaka, Japan. Company was founded in 1918 as lightbulb socket manufacturing unit and has grown as one of the largest Japanese Electronics producers. Company stands alongside Sony, Toshiba, Hitachi, etc. By 2012, company was the fourth largest producer of television across the globe. Company has invented unique type of laptop i.e. Toughbook. This was designed with the objective of providing master solution for every organization irrespective of their type (Panasonic Corporation, 2018). Organization has decided to introduce their product in Australian market with the objective of expansion.

In 1996, company introduced Toughbook which is a type of laptop. Toughbook is a line of rugged computers and forms a trademark brand name owned by Panasonic Corporation. First Toughbook was CF-25 and it is designed to resist vibration, spills, drops, high temperature as well as rough handling. Major usage of this product is in industries such as manufacturing, construction, defence, government health care, emergency services, oil, gas, etc. Later on in 2011, tablet line was introduced with the same specifications. In order to prove the performance of this device, company has conducted almost 501 quality checks and tests. Before its introduction in the market, several independent tests were conducted in order to determine the resistance of Toughbook computers with comparison to external forces. Main motive behind production of producing rugged laptop is to provide resolution for various challenges and issues faced by companies in terms of technology. This laptop is designed to assist the companies in various manners and it helps the companies to go further, attain more as well as for transforming the best possible way. Reviewing the success of this device, organization has planned to expand the market for this particular device. Australian market has been chosen in terms of expanding the market of Toughbook.

In this report, background information of the company will be discussed along with describing the type of industry. Apart from this, report will focus over the existing pricing strategies and the pricing tactics which will be practiced in the new target market. Further, recommendations will be given in relevance with executing the operations in fair manner in Australia along with attracting target audience.

Every global market, industry or organization requires unique mobility strategy in order to support their operations structure as well as to acquire goals and objectives. The fact cannot be denied that every company has unique requirements in relation with mobility. These requirements are based over some standards across all vertical markets. Industrial sectors and field-service sectors require rugged computing solution services which could be capable enough of handling extreme environmental conditions. Due to high demand of rugged computing solutions in Australia, Panasonic has planned to introduce their Toughbook computer in Australian market. This device helps the Australia to improve utility services, public safety management services, etc. Along with this, this device will help manufacturing industry, telecommunication industry, transport and logistics industry, saving natural resources as well as in construction industry (Yan & Pei, 2011).

Pricing Strategies

In terms of attaining competitive advantage, organization has adopted competitive pricing strategy while in other areas, organization implements mixed strategy which is based over demand and supply of products and services. Panasonic Toughbook is for high end market and this has leaded the organization to stand on the competitive position through competitive pricing strategy. Purchasing power of citizens of Japan is quite high and the target audience for Toughbook is business organizations, thus, they could easily afford this product (McWilliams & Siegel, 2011). In terms of enhancing the customer base, organization has also adopted cost leadership pricing strategy in relevance with the attainment of goals and objectives. Pricing strategy for Toughbook in Japan has been adopted by considering its customer base; demand of the product, business class people, geographical area, etc. Along with the cost leadership strategy, fair price policy and mixture of various cost cutting strategies has been adopted by the organization. These strategies are useful for penetrating the market. Primary motive of Panasonic is enhancing sales which will ultimately enhance the profitability. Thus, reducing cost and profit margins is their main objectives so as to provide the products at reasonable prices to the target audience (Li, Xu & Li, 2013). This will increase organizational sales and ultimately, it will enhance the demand for organizational products.

While organization is now planning to expand its business and initially, Toughbook will be launched in Australian market in order to uplift organizational performance. For penetrating the Australian market, Panasonic has implemented its old pricing strategies i.e. cost leadership, fair pricing strategy as well as the pricing strategy which is based over demand and supply of the product. These pricing strategies will help the organization to set up an effective brand image in the target market along with enhancing its global image (Nagle, Hogan & Zale, 2016). This will also generate various opportunities for the organization to grow and expand its customer base and market share in other parts of the globe. In relevance with the accomplishment of organizational desired goals and objectives with regards to the expansion of Toughbook in Australian market, these pricing strategies will proved to be more effective (Lowe & Alpert, 2010).

Pricing tactics are implemented within the workplace to attain short terms business objectives. Pricing tactic is implemented to manipulate the prices of products and services in order to attain organizational goals and objectives in a short period of time. For example: Panasonic has implemented pricing tactics in Japan and under this, they reduces the prices of Toughbook for a certain period of time in order to boost up the sales as well as to attract new customers. Apart from reducing prices for a short period of time, organization could adopt certain effective promotional and discount offers in order to attract the target audience in Australian market (Pillai & Kumar, 2012). Rest, all pricing tactics adopted by Panasonic in Japanese market could be implemented in Australian market with the objective of enhancing the sales in the target market. Initial objectives for Panasonic in relation with new target market will be setting up effective position and further, enhancing sales and customer base will be the primary objectives. Thus, pricing tactics will help the organization to attain its objectives in relevance with establishment of brand image along with gaining success and growth in the new target market (Wu & Banker, 2010).

Expansion Plan for Australian Market

In order to set up effective market image in the new target market, following are certain appropriate pricing strategies that have been recommended to the company:

Value based pricing: It is also known as value optimised pricing and it is a pricing strategy under which prices for the products are set primary according to the estimated value of product. In the scenario of Toughbook, value for the product is its durability irrespective of the situation. Toughbook is designed to resist vibration, spills, drops, high temperature as well as rough handling. Thus, the price for the product will be the actual cost of the product plus the value of the product and plus the appropriate profit margin of the organization. With the help of this pricing strategy, demand for the product will automatically be increased due to value proposition offered in the product (Spann, Fischer & Tellis, 2014).

Price skimming: It is a pricing strategy under which prices of the products are set relatively high in initial period of leaching of the product and then lowers the price over time (Zhang, Chiang & Liang, 2014). This pricing strategy is a part of price discrimination and with the help of this pricing strategy, organization is able to recover its invested costs quickly before increasing competition in the market and then lowers the prices of the product in order to manage competitive place in the marketplace. Panasonic could adopt this strategy in order to capture the consumer surplus early in the product life cycle. This ensures exploiting monopolistic positon as well as low price sensitivity of innovators (Rusetski, 2014).

Conclusion

From the aforesaid information, it could be concluded that Panasonic has launched Toughbook in Japanese market but due to low target market in Japan, organization has decided to expand its market share by introducing the product in Australian market. In relevance with the expansion of the market, pricing strategies of the organization has been evaluated along with the evaluation of pricing tactics. With this regard, recommendations have been given to the company in order to adopt appropriate pricing strategies to capture the new target market with the objective of successful expansion.

References

Li, Y., Xu, L. and Li, D., 2013. Examining relationships between the return policy, product quality, and pricing strategy in online direct selling. International Journal of Production Economics, 144(2), pp.451-460.

Lowe, B. and Alpert, F., 2010. Pricing strategy and the formation and evolution of reference price perceptions in new product categories. Psychology & Marketing, 27(9), pp.846-873.

McWilliams, A. and Siegel, D.S., 2011. Creating and capturing value: Strategic corporate social responsibility, resource-based theory, and sustainable competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 37(5), pp.1480-1495.

Nagle, T.T., Hogan, J. and Zale, J., 2016. The Strategy and Tactics of Pricing: New International Edition. Routledge.

Panasonic Corporation. 2018. Toughbook. Accessed from: https://na.panasonic.com/us/computers-tablets-handhelds [Online]. [27^th April 2018].

Pillai, K.G. and Kumar, V., 2012. Differential effects of value consciousness and coupon proneness on consumers’ persuasion knowledge of pricing tactics. Journal of Retailing, 88(1), pp.20-33.

Rusetski, A., 2014. Pricing by intuition: Managerial choices with limited information. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), pp.1733-1743.

Spann, M., Fischer, M. and Tellis, G.J., 2014. Skimming or penetration? Strategic dynamic pricing for new products. Marketing Science, 34(2), pp.235-249.

Wu, S.Y. and Banker, R.D., 2010. Best pricing strategy for information services. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 11(6), p.339.

Yan, R. and Pei, Z., 2011. Information asymmetry, pricing strategy and firm's performance in the retailer-multi-channel manufacturer supply chain. Journal of Business Research, 64(4), pp.377-384.

Zhang, J., Chiang, W.Y.K. and Liang, L., 2014. Strategic pricing with reference effects in a competitive supply chain. Omega, 44, pp.126-135.