Case Study

Panasonic Europe (A): Building a new competitive platform

10 pages
September 2005
Reference: IMD-3-1557

In the mid-1990s, Panasonic Europe had begun to outsource component manufacturing and assembly in an attempt to reduce costs. In view of new threats from low cost Asian manufacturers, it now had to assess what learnings could be distilled from the outsourcing activity so far, to guide future decisions and to evaluate various new options for moving manufacturing out of Western Europe into areas with lower costs of production. State-of-the-art manufacturing had always been at the heart of Matsushita’s operations though it could also consider getting out of manufacturing completely, and instead focus more on R&D and marketing activities, as some of the competition had already done. The decisions had to be made swiftly, for there was a clear directive from headquarters that any business in the red for three consecutive years would be shut down–immediately.

Keywords
Outsourcing, Sourcing, Manufacturing, Consumer Electronics, High Technology
Settings
Europe
March 2000 - May 2005
Type
Field Research
Copyright
© 2005
Available Languages
English
Case clearing houses
IMD case studies are distributed through case clearing houses. In order to browse the collection and purchase copies please visit the links below.

The Case Centre

Cranfield University

Wharley End Beds MK43 0JR, UK
Tel +44 (0)1234 750903
Email [email protected]

Harvard Business School Publishing

60 Harvard Way, Boston MA 02163, USA
Tel (800) 545-7685 Tel (617)-783-7600
Fax (617) 783-7666
Email [email protected]

Asia Pacific Case Center

NUCB Business School

1-3-1 Nishiki Naka
Nagoya Aichi, Japan 460-0003
Tel +81 52 20 38 111
Email [email protected]

Contact

Research Information & Knowledge Hub for additional information on IMD publications

Discover our latest research
IMD's faculty and research teams publish articles, case studies, books and reports on a wide range of topics