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Whirlpool Corporation

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A07-00-0013

Whirlpool Corporation’s
Global Strategy
We want to be able to take the best capabilities we have and leverage them in all our companies worldwide.
David Whitman, Whirlpool CEO, 1994
Quoted in the Harvard Business Review

In 1989, Whirlpool Corporation (Whirlpool) embarked on an ambitious global expansion with the objective of becoming the world market leader in home appliances. Beginning with the purchase of a majority stake in an appliance company owned by Philips, the Dutch electronics firm, Whirlpool purchased a majority stake in an Indian firm, established four joint ventures in China, and made significant new investments in its Latin America operations.
However, by the mid-1990s, serious problems had emerged …show more content…

The four main players—Whirlpool, General
Electric, Maytag, and White Consolidated, which had been acquired by Electrolux—were beating one another up everyday.4

With limited growth opportunities and a handful of major players in the United States, it was critical that firms focus on cost reduction, productive efficiency, and product quality. Product innovation was also critical, although few major innovations had occurred in recent years. The apppliance firms segmented their products according to different consumers’ needs, and each strived to achieve greater economies of scale. Still, by the end of the 1990s, the competitive landscape remained unattractive. Profit margins continued to decline for most firms. Many analysts believed that the market for appliances was saturated and that there would be little increase in growth rates. This saturation had left the distributors focusing primarily on replacement purchases and purchases for new housing developments.

The European Industry
In the early 1980s, there were approximately 350 producers of household appliances

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