strive to leverage advantage and global competition through mergers and acquisition

Nowadays, both big and small businesses are pooling resources due to the need to maximize advantages and increased worldwide rivalry. Market consolidation is one of the main justifications put up for mergers and acquisitions. Businesses that offer and process comparable services and goods are aiming to develop and consolidate their markets by leveraging shared interests to further their objectives. Despite thorough investigation and due diligence, there have been certain hazards associated with attempting such corporate changes. Increasing their capacity and size for corporate growth is the final goal of mergers and acquisitions, despite the fact that they may appear to be driven by various needs (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2013).

Because of the increasing development of new business systems and technical expertise coupled with advancement in communication technology, the speed of efficiency and growth of operational functions have become essential towards ensuring continuous sustainability and survival of corporate companies. Investors are currently looking for quicker investment returns because of the global economic volatility. The theory of acquisitions and mergers assists investors to increases the efficiency of their business by lowering the overall costs of production per unit output (Hitt, Ireland and Hoskisson, 2013).

Evaluation of the strategy that led to the merger or acquisition

In 2011, T-Mobile merged with AT&T. In telecommunication industry, AT&T is currently the largest wireless carrier company in the entire United States. It has taken over its major competitor Verizon wireless. Because of merging, T-Mobile benefited from the acquisition by minimizing all the debts after acquiring the stocked value of AT&T Company (Worthman, 2012).

With merging, AT&T had to focus on increasing its coverage and network as well as working on the expansion of their long-term deployment and evolution of technology in the whole world. Currently, the wireless industry plays a significant factor for the AT&T to keep on running in the telecommunication business because it needs to work on new technologies to manufacture new devices and come up with new applications to support its customer demands (Worthman, 2012).

T-Mobile was already struggling and the stocks of the company were already going down. As a result, their solution was to merge with AT&T. Therefore, it was a great operation for both companies to prosper. Before undertaking the merging option, T-Mobiles was dealing in basic services such as voice mail, texting, free minutes over the weekend and accessible plan to customer attraction. As a result, the company failed to upgrade its internet network hence it was lying behind from its competitors.

T-Mobiles was doing fabulous business disregard of the basic services it was offering and when the technology advanced to use wireless data, the company started to lose its business. After realizing all these changes happening as they were losing customers, they tried to get back into the business. However, it was too late to handle the competition. All its competitors such as Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint were providing new technologies, new devices and advanced wireless internet services to their customers. As a result, T-Mobile decided to focus on the provision of wireless data, new technology, and best services to their customers hence it started gaining its customers back. In order to outcome its rivals who were using the 3G network, T-mobiles introduced 4G network. After the wireless industry had enveloped, all combines switched to offering 4G network and T-mobiles started losing business again (Worthman, 2012).

Because of the above challenges in T-mobiles, AT&T found a great opportunity to merge with t-mobiles. Through merging, both companies would be largest wireless service providers in the United States. In their merging transaction, they noticed how the T-mobiles were an important competitor and an excellent opportunity for AT&T.

Because of merging, AT&T is currently taking an advantage of economies of scale since it is competing effectively with other competitors such as Verizon. As a prepaid company, it is currently offering the best-unlimited plan at cheaper costs to attract its customers. Therefore, AT&T made a wiser choice to merge with T-mobiles because merging has positioned it on top of all companies offering wireless services in the region.

A company that would be a profitable candidate for the corporation to merge with

The primary business dealing retail food supermarkets in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, and South Carolina is Publix supermarkets, Inc. Currently, the company sells grocery, which includes bakery, seafood, meat dairy produce, general merchandise, beauty care, floral and other related products, and services (Publix Super Market Inc, 2012).

The line of merchandise for the company includes a range of pre-labelled and advertised brands and unbranded merchandise such as seafood, meat, and produce. In addition, the company receives and distributes food and non-food products from many sources. These products are delivered to the supermarkets, the central and distribution centers of the company or directly from its suppliers (Publix Super Market Inc, 2012).

The strategic company that could merge with Publix supermarket Inc would be BI-LO supermarkets. When the two companies merge, they would make a great combination since they are currently competing against each other in the same industry. In addition, the customers would be appreciative after both firms have merged because they will be offering good discounts and coupons.

The merging of both companies will leverage their relationships with customers since they would be offering quality services that are satisfactory to their customers. Since acquisition is not a new concept in the food retail industry, if Publix supermarket merges with BI-LO supermarket, it will create revenue and sales growth on both corporations and become the profitable target for both companies.

Evaluation of the international business-level strategy and international corporate-level strategy and recommendations for improvement

In this question, the chosen international company is Apple. The international business-level strategy of Apple is to make quality products and sell them around the whole world. It uses china as the top manufacturer of the products. In addition, the company has always wanted to keep on improving its products and keep the focus on innovations such as the iPhone and iPad that would be released in the market at the end of every year. All the products of apple are unique and exclusive and each product is selling in different parts of the world. The prices charged on each product are higher than those of any regular computer are.

The main targeted markets of apple are Europe, Asia, and the United States. As they sell their products, they outsource their raw materials in Korea and manufacture their products in china. Apple has a number of competitors in the same electronics industry such as Samsung but its products have remained unique. As result, its products have always stood out in the market.

Apple’s international business-level strategy is mainly focusing on selling their products in first world countries and manufacturing their products in the third world countries due to cheap labor and convenience for the company. Apple manufactures its products based on the demands of its customers (Apple Inc, 2012). The major goal of the company is to serve technology market with most advanced and latest technology selling latest devices such that every customer would want to obtain an expensive price (Apple Inc, 2012). In addition, it keeps its modern image with its computers and other devices hence it can maintain its customer base. Moreover, the company has different ways through which its products have to be purchased namely online or at its stores in different locations in the United States, Asia, and Europe. It is among few companies that have managed to maintain its retail stores in such continents. Because of that, it has a competitive advantage against its competitors (Apple Inc, 2012).

To improve its business level strategy internationally, apple can use free application for its customers. Currently, apple offers an application called MobileMe which syncs different options in all apple products to keep the emails, contacts, and calendars over the air and this service cost the company approximately 0.99 million dollars per year. The company should make this application free since customers are paying expensive prices for the products they purchase from the company.

Proposed business-level strategy and corporate-level strategy

The company chosen for this question is the southwest airlines, which is a low-fare major airline domestically operating in the United States. Currently, the southwest airlines are the largest career in the United States in terms of the domestic passengers boarded. It serves 76 destinations in the District of Columbia and the 38 states of America (Southwest Investor Relations, 2012).

The international business level strategy for the southwest airlines would be expanding its flights internationally. Because of many events taking place in the world, the southwest airlines can expand its flight services in north marc and South America. With the current Olympic Games and world cup competitions, the southwest airlines can go internationally by reducing costs and make prices affordable to its customers who would be traveling for such events. It is also possible for the company to create and select a route from Dallas to Brazil hence leaving growth target for the company.

In terms of competition, southwest airlines can compete with other strong airlines in the United States such as united airlines, air France, and delta. To effectively compete with such companies, the southwest airlines can reduce its costs by employing low costly labor and ensuring higher craft utilization such that it can survive in the international industry of airlines. In addition, offering cheap prices to customers and offering free bag checking will attract more customers (Southwest Investor Relations, 2012).

Most of the airline companies are currently charging customers who have extra luggage. If the southwest airlines can provide free luggage services and stop charging for extra luggage, customers will embrace the airline services and will be in the position to use the airline. In addition, the low and affordable flight in countries and cities will be able to bring many revenues to the company.

References

Apple Inc (2012); Apple Inc data. Retrieved on August 24, 2012, from http://www.apple.com/environment/news/

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., & Hoskisson, R. E, (2013). Strategic management: Concepts and cases: Competitiveness and globalization (10th ed.). Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning.

Publix Super Market Inc, (2012). Market Data; Retrieved on August 22, 2015, from http://markets.ft.com/Research/Markets/Tearsheets/Business-profile?s=PUSH:QBB

Southwest Investor Relations, (2012), Company profile. Retrieved on August 22, 2015, from http://southwest.investorroom.com

Worthman, J (2012). AT&T in $6.7 Billion Loss on Failure of T-Mobile Deal; The New York Times., Retrieved on August 26, 2016, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/27/technology/atts-net-loss-tied-to-t-mobile-merger-fees.html