Discussion on Iridium :: essays research papers

Competitive Attri hardlye Program V Iridium Mobile beam System ProjectThe ability to capture values along the Technology Adoption Lifecycle determines not just how successful a firm depart be, but whether it will create competitive advantage through technology. Businesses with large fixed lives, capital-intensive business plans, and specialized asset bases will face the challenge to maintain its strategic continuity because it is generally prohibitively expensive to change direction to response to any conceivable structural change. Iridium, a satellite mobile system which cost $5 billion to build, began to provide commercial telephone service on November 1 1998. This paper aims to use the Iridium Project, which I have participated at Motorola before, to dilate the incremental benefits and the pitfalls from creating competitive advantage through technology and activity system.Discussion of incremental benefits & industry analysis by using five force beat Competitor V Mobile Sate llite System (MSS) companiesThe largest competitor from MSS companies is Globalstar. Globalstars communication system is supported by low cost satellites which enhance the surmisal for Globalstar to implement a comparatively lower pricing strategy than Iridium. Although Globalstar has simpler and cheaper satellites than Iridium owns, it requires ground switching systems for effective connections. In return, the coverage of Globalstar system was restricted to vote out locations. This form of benchmarking activities within Iridium helps to formulate the strategic position and get to know a better reinforcement of strategic fit. Substitutes V Ground-Based Wireless serviceIn 1990s, ground-based wireless phone service grew rapidly around the world. A key factor in the growth of wireless phones was the adoption of a genius standard, known as GSM, in Europe and parts of Asia. There were 480 million cellular subscribers worldwide by January 2000 and it reached more than billions before 2 005. The economy of scale that introduced will provide the extent of competitive pressure in the business environment. It helps to stimulate Iridium to consider price-performance tradeoff that offered by the substitutes and the need of product differentiation alternatives in advance.Customers/Buyers V Global business travelersMajor guest consists of the businessman who is willing to travel around the world as well as staying in gain with the office and home. In account of the industries that operate in remote areas, the competitive positioning option of Iridium tends to be access-based to reach differently accessible customer with the similar need in terms of communication. Iridium designed a set of activities to make tradeoffs in competing, for instance, reduce marketing campaign in urban areas and brand name development for large corporations.