Pressures for Change Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Pressures for Change - Essay Example Barrett was barely a year old at the organization when America started the war on Iraq. This was in 2001. The war was solely a political move that had dire consequences on different aspects of the American economy. It strained the economy as more money was needed to fund the fight. In this case, the money could only be sourced from public fund which is tax collected. This resulted in a shift in the purchasing forms of most the American market. The war also affected international markets. For instance, sympathizers of the Iraqi government started discriminating against American products and Intel was one of the companies that felt the consequence of the discrimination. Intel manufactures computer chips and sells them off to other companies some of which are situated overseas (Palmer, Dunford & Akin, 2009). The poor performance following this had detrimental consequences on the firms’ standings at the stocks market since low sales meant lower profits resulting to low dividends t o its share holders. As a result, investors began shying off from Intel’s shares and this was to blame for the poorest price of twenty dollars that the company’s share got to by September 2001. This poor performance caused by the geopolitical factor needed effective change to reverse. It was a trend that could have seen this leading market player liquidated within the shortest period and the chief executive office Craig Barrett could not have known what would have hit him. Being the aggressive individual he was, he noticed the need initiate change and introduce a brand into the market that could sustain the buying trends at the time. It is with this in mind that he launched faster and smaller processors at lower prices. With this type of product, the firm shifted its market target from the high end citizens to the middle and low class who coincidentally formed the majority of the population. He also was forced to diversify the firm’s operation. He transformed th e company from merely making the microprocessors to a manufacturer of other information and communication appliances. In as much as the move to begin manufacturing other communication and information appliances was a good one, it was bound to impact negatively on the general sale of the firm’s products. Intel initially manufactured these micro chips and sold them to other manufacturers of ICT products such as Toshiba, Acer, and Hewlett Packer (HP). This meant that these other secondary firms would buy these chips in bulk and use them to manufacture their products. But since Intel would still reserve the copyright laws, they would always indicate that their products had Intel chips. This acted as a platform for further advertisement for Intel’s products. It is, therefore, only logical that when Intel began manufacturing such appliances as computers and mobile phones, it started competing for the very limited market with its former customers. This would not have been rec eived positively by these companies as they started treating Intel as a competitor and not a supplier. This further reduced the sales of the firm’s products and contributed to the poor price of the firm in the year 2001 and early 2002. With a poor performance, and the changes that the chief executive officer was making in the firm, the company was most definitely taking a newer shape. The