Guest Lecture - Market Entry Strategy of Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group
It is an honour to have Dr. Florian Fuhl be our guest speaker in the seminar in business management course hosted by IBMBA. It is the first time we have Florian here, introducing the market entry strategy of Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group. Over 50 students in the classroom benefit from the practical industry strategy.
To start the sharing, Florian introduces Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group and lets the students know about his background. Florian also shares some interesting facts about the BSH group. Unlike other companies, females are the main characters in the BSH group. Most of the department heads are female and they are doing great in their position. Afterward, Florian has an interaction section with the students by asking about their thinking about entering a market. There are some students who answer ‘culture difference’, Florian agrees it is an important element. Let an example of dishwashers, Taiwanese housewives are afraid to have a washer as they may label as ‘lazy wives’. Florian thinks it shows the culturally different and shares how the BSH group deal with the culturally different.
To let the students know more about the practical strategy, Florian introduces BSH’s 4C model. During the sharing, we can understand that the model is similar to the theory that was taught in the lesson. However, there are serval changes to fit in BSH groups operation and brands’ strategy. Rather than using different models in different decisions, BSH is able to do almost every decision with the 4C model.
From classroom to reality, Florian has a guess section for the students to think in a different way. Using some simple questions, students are able to understand how a company will think with the same information. Also, he introduces some practical ways that the industry is using to deal with the same questions.
Dr. Florian provides a different decision model which is useful for making most of the decisions. One of them is the GE-Mckinsey Matrix, it is a matrix not that familiar to the students. With Taiwan’s data as an example, Florian shows the full function of the matrix and the analysis tips on it. Since the matrix and real-life examples are fresh to the students, they are all interested and benefit from it.
During the sharing, students actively interact with Dr. Florian. Students are asking different questions to have some advice or feedback from Florian, to know more about the practical business practice. Here are some questions asked by students:
How do you make business decisions?
Usually, I use the theory or matrix that I learn in my master's degree. There need some changes to meet the real world.
How long should we re-do the matrix or analysis?
It depends on the industry, some of them may do it every year. It is more dynamic and meets the fast changes in the market. However, a strategy should be long-term, so I would say 5 years usually. However, it also depends on the changes in the whole market. Such as COVID changes a lot, so the company may have to review its own strategy unexpectedly.
In a group discussion for students to brainstorm their idea, students are divided into groups and asked to have a presentation on marketing strategy in Taiwan. Every group try to use the method that Florian introduces to make a decision. Students choose different places in Taiwan from their anaysis.
Dr. Florian appreciate everyone’s work and gave positive comments on the presentation. He believes that students are now capable to use different analysis methods to make a market entry strategy.
