Describe the Salient Opportunities and Threats That Exist in Motorola's External Environment

Assignment 3: Motorola, Inc

Contemporary Business - BUS 499

November 13, 2011

Dr. Ann Pohira-Vieth

Motorola, Inc.

Describe the Salient Opportunities and Threats that Exist in Motorola's External Environment

In Motorola's external environment, some of the salient opportunities that exist are the following; Motorola's product name and long standing reputation. This has allowed Motorola to stay in business for over 80 years. Since it's restructure in 2008 into three operating segments (Home and Networks Mobility, Enterprise Mobility Solutions, and Mobile Devices), Motorola has given itself the opportunity to focus on three separate markets for it companies performance versus putting everything under one umbrella. Motorola has also expanded its products worldwide and to foreign countries where it has started to penetrate itself into new markets. This will allow them to enter in to a diverse area and could potentially help them to grab a bigger share of the communications market. As will all businesses, Motorola has their fair share of threats. In this case it is their competitors. Their competitors are the companies like LG Electronics, Apple, Nokia, and Samsung. These companies have capitalized on Motorola's inability to produce a better product within their Mobile Device segment. This has allowed these companies to take some of the market share from Motorola.

Describe the Company's Most Prominent Strengths and Weaknesses

For a company to operate successfully it is very necessary for it to realize its strength and weaknesses. Major reason being the fact that once aware of a company's strength and weaknesses it is very easy to determine ones position in the market and to realize where one is standing. As far as Motorola's strength and weaknesses are considered let us first focus our view on its strength. One of the greatest strength of Motorola is that it is the leading provider of wireless technology and communication. Motorola has always been consistent with new technology, this can be proved by their innovative ideas and invention in the past. This has been proven as a strength as expertise in innovation can take a company to new heights. Also there quality has remained consistent which can be a useful factor towards building a strong image with its customers. However, to survive and compete in a market one should highly be aware of their weaknesses. Thus Motorola's major weakness has been their lack of innovation in recent years within their Mobile Device egment. Motorala's mobile phone business has recently suffered a recession leading to the loss of former customers as well as the inability to gain new ones. Their last successful cell phone launch was with the RAZR in 2004. Since 2006, Motorola's market share has decreased from 22.2 percent in to 12 percent in 2007. Unfortunately, Motorola is trying to play catch up, but due to lack of direction and innovation they have fallen short.

Describe the Advantages and Disadvantages Associated with each of Motorola's Strategic Options

With Motorola's current strategies framed around returning the firm to profitability, we have to look at how the plan to do that and what are the downsides. As I stated earlier, Motorola consists of three divisions, but there was much discussion about breaking the Mobile Device segment into an independent company. This was an idea that could have provided the company with two industry-leading companies. Motorola was attempting to establish improved flexibility as well as better investment opportunities for their shareholders. The disadvantage to this was it was based upon a strong economy, which unfortunately