...Garmin is a Swiss company that develops consumer, aviation, and marine technologies for the Global Positioning System (GPS). It was founded in 1989 by Gerry Burrell and Min Kao in Lenexa, Kansas as ProNav, and in 2010 was incorporated in Schaffhausen, Switzerland, as the headquarters and successor to Garmin Cayman, which until then, had served as a holding company for Garmin corporation. Though their claim to fame came from their pioneering of marine and handheld GPS' for the US Army, they have since expanded into the commercial market focusing on the design, manufacturing, and marketing of a diverse family of hand-held, portable, and fixed navigation and communications products. According to the company, Garmin is a leader in providing “navigation, communication, information devices and applications, most of which are enabled by GPS technology”. Garmin’s stated goal in creating these devices is to enrich the lives of their customers, by providing high quality products that create value for consumers. Classified as a technology and scientific instruments company, it operates in five business sectors which serve the marine, outdoor, fitness, automotive, and aviation markets. The company advances the idea of their superiority in value and performance, ease of use, innovation, and ergonomics of its products, and offers an expansive array of solutions across its various segments. As a result of the variety in the nature of the products and types of customers they serve, the segments...
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...popular products and major product’s lines includes TomTom Go and TomTom One for cars, TomTom Rider for bikes, TomTom Navigator (digital maps), and TomTom for iPhone. Moreover, it has a large market share in European markets and second in United States. TomTom credits its leadership in the market to technology, prominent brand image, distribution power, and large customer base. However, as the European and US personal navigation device market gets even saturated than before, the company’s sales growth rate start to decline. TomTom is also facing increasing competition from other platforms using GPS technology like cell phones and smart phones with built in navigation systems. Furthermore, the three major competitors which faced by TomTom are Garmin which have the market share of 45%, Magellan which control 15% of market, and Navico Company which reels in anglers with its high-tech fish finders and keeps hikers and hunters on the right track with its portable location trackers. Thus, the environmental and legal restrictions on the navigation industry make TomTom’s future prospects desolate. Example of issues face by TomTom includes the use of GPS devices for tracking and theft of PND devices. So, TomTom started responded to these threats by shifting its business mix toward value-added services and in the meantime make its personal navigation devices much smaller portion of total revenue. Hence, to let TomTom able to keep expanding their market and recapture significant growth is likely...
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...increasingly common due to the advancements of electronics. They can now be hand-held and are highly prominent on roads. This is particularly noticeable in taxis, as most cabs are now fitted with some form of GPS device and many fleets have enforced mandatory GPS policies. This document analyses the impact and worth of refitting a fleet of taxis the size of Canberra Cabs with new portable GPS devices. A series of systems analysis techniques were applied in the analysis of the devices in order to reduce the complexity of the components. A major period of device improvement was identified as the time between 2007 and 2009 based on a diffusion of innovations analysis. The analysis of two particular devices, the TomTom XL 310 (2007) and the Garmin Nuvi 1350 (2009), were used as a comparative measure of the improvements made in the time period. The devices chosen for analysis were ergonomically assessed in terms of their user interface. The major factors improved were found to be the prediction of text and consistency with other devices users may be familiar with. An experiment was then designed and performed to test these factors independently. It was found that the factors above accounted for a time saving of between 30% and 40% for acquiring the required directions on the new device. The embodied energy of the devices was found to be approximately consistent, but other factors suggested a cheaper manufacturing process for the newer device. The environmental impact in terms of energy...
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...Garmin Analysis | Following the Business Decision | By.ENRIQUE KELSO.FINANCIAL Abstract Garmin is a producer of GPS technology, based in Taiwan, but with major offices in Switzerland and incorporation in the Cayman Islands (MSN Moneycentral, 2013). The company enjoyed strong growth for much of the 2000s, only to see that growth deteriorate when its core technology, GPS, was installed in smartphones. Prior to that point, Garmin sold its global positioning systems as separate units, sometimes for hundreds of dollars. The obsolescence of its core computer product had many observers questioning the long-term viability of the company (Seeking Alpha, 2009; Ganapati, 2008; Moritz, 2008). The company continues to operate today, having found some new uses for its technology, but Garmin today is a smaller firm than it once was. Nevertheless, it has remained profitable and can be reasonably evaluated on the basis of its potential for future growth. Introduccion Garmin employs around 9800 workers . Since losing much of its GPS business, with the remaining retail applications being to rental car companies, Garmin has sought to re-invent itself. The company markets global positioning technology to the airline industry, automobile manufacturers, the shipping industry, traffic management systems and it still has a handful of retail products for those customers who do not yet have a smartphone. The non-aviation products are marketed through retail channels including Amazon.com...
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...Garmin was founded in 1989 by Gary Burell and Dr. Min Kao; and has overtime evolved into the leading worldwide provider of navigation, communication and information devices and applications that have engaged GPS technology. Garmin designs and manufactures over one hundred products for four main segments: automotive/mobile, outdoor/fitness, marine and aviation (Garmin, 2009). Garmin has a proven track record of solid revenue and earnings per share growth. Garmin’s balance sheet represents the snapshot of its financial position on the last day of the year (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2011). Naturally, as a retailer, Garmin has a larger inventory before the holiday season, which would make the analysis of Garmin’s balance sheet very different in the spring (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2011). Overall the balance sheet shows that Garmin presents little financial risk for an investor, as the capital structure does not rely on leverage (Businessweek, 2012). The current ratio is the current assets divided by the current liabilities, for Garmin this number is 4.0 (Forbes.com, 2012). This number indicates Garmin has a strong ability to pay their short-term bills as the higher the number of a company’s current ratio the better, placing Garmin in a strong category (JWI530, week 5). This number has decreased however from a 5 in 2010 (Istockanalyst.com, 2010). However, a high current ratio can also be indicative that a company is not investing enough in its own business, but rather are sitting on...
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...According to the American Humane Society, in one calendar year over ten million of our furry friends have gone missing for an extensive period of time. Thankfully, in recent years a greater percentage of lost pets are recovered thankful to sophisticated microchips and precise GPS tracking systems. Garmin remains the leader in all varieties of GPS system from handheld GPS systems all the way to systems for sporting activities such as fishing, hunting, and running. Garmin has taken their expertise in location services and made it comfortable and safe for pets to wear. In the Shooting Sportsman Volume XXIX Issue V published in October of 2017 Garmin is advertising a high sensitivity GPS tracking collar for dogs. Garmin’s targets include not only those that enjoy to go hunting with their pets but also the everyday dog lover. Garmin’s ad with bright orange colors and wide expanses of land dotted with green shrubbery that is outlining the shadow image of the handheld device uses a cunning choice of empty space, pristine focus, and bold framing to display the precision, consistency, and broad spectrum of use in an unfamiliar land....
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...Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) is the global leader in satellite navigation. It is a company that designs, manufactures and markets portable, fix mounted and hand held Global Positioning System (GPS) devices. It also manufactures devices for communication that utilizes the combination of GPS technology and cellular technology for better coverage. Its products serve the automotive, mobile, wireless, outdoor, recreation, marine, aviation and OEM applications. In 2000, Garmin Ltd became a public company and is currently trading on the NASDAQ (GRMN). The company’s success is contributed by the quality of material and products that they deal with as well as its mission to enhance people’s lives through manufacturing of useful products by using this complex technology called GPS. This way the customer’s daily lives become less complicated and improved. Garmin also has a proven track record of solid revenue and earnings per share growth (www.forbes.com/garmin). Balance Sheet Analysis: The balance sheet ratios for Garmin for different years test the company’s liquidity and financial strength. “The smart business analyst comes to the balance sheet first to gauge the overall health of the company” (JWMI 530, Week Three, Lecture One). Garmin’s balance sheet represents the snapshot of its financial position on the last day of the year. (Brigham & Ehrhardt, 2011). Garmin seems to have a very strong balance sheet due to the company having zero long term and short term debt and plenty of...
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...Embraer is a Brazilian aerospace company that produces commercial, military, executive, agricultural aircraft and provides aeronautical services. The Cessna Aircraft Company is an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing corporation headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Best known for small, piston-powered aircraft, Cessna also produces business jets. Market Segmentation Cessna Aircraft are sold to private businesses, governments, individuals, freight airlines, charter airlines, and air taxi companies. Cessna has several competitors domestically and internationally in various market segments. Cessna’s aircraft compete with other aircraft that vary in size, speed, range, capacity and handling characteristics on the basis of price, product quality and reliability, product support and reputation. Embraer (ERJ) operates in the following four major business segments: commercial aviation, defense and security, executive jets, and agricultural aircraft. Commercial aviation is Embraer’s largest business segment, contributing about 52% of the company’s total sales. Applying the concepts of determinants of service quality by Parasuraman, Zeithaml, & Berry (1985) to Embraer and Cessna Reliability: Cessna’s Promise “Safety is the top priority for Cessna when designing and manufacturing aircraft.. Combining both active and passive safety features ensures that every new aircraft is designed and equipped to deliver on the trust that passengers place in both pilot...
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...Project Management - Assignment # "GPS-to-GO Takes on Garmin" Submitted by November 02nd, 2011 1. Analyze the personality and temperament of Joseph Thomas. From what I gather, Joseph Thomas is a weak leader. He could not manage his people well. He have great ideas and insights but could not see them through. Although he could see errors early on, he did not bring the attention of the people he can see fault in. He have ideas that would have ensured the redesigning would not be needed in the first place, but he chose to stay quiet. Joseph Thomas hesitates too much on taking a definitive action. He has lots of plans and ideas, and he has insights of what is going wrong, but he did not act as he should. He always think or complain about lack of resources as well, even without confirming with the boss, he was already sure that the idea of redesigning would be shoot down because of the lack in resources. He also believe that he did not have good men under him. The truth is, any leader does not have enough resources, but what differentiates a good leader from a weak one is that the good leader figure out how to get the job done properly with what they have. Lastly, Joseph Thomas does not take responsibility. He blamed everyone except himself. 2. Separate the four (4) steps in the project life cycle and comment about how Joseph Thomas moved through them. The Project Life Cycle consists of a logical sequence of activities that would help in achieving the project’s...
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...GPS-to-GO Takes on Garmin Sharon Smith-Basey BUS 518 Project Leadership Dr. David Plumer Strayer University February 3, 2013 GPS-to-GO Takes on Garmin Analyze the personality and temperament of Joseph Thomas. Joseph Thomas is considered as an everyday manager who has grown up in the business of Global GPS and he commands great respect from his peers. Thomas has a full understanding of the makeup of workers at GPS. He knows too well how the workers are comfortable with working at their own pace and spending is of very little concern because their organizational culture is built around serving clients such as the government, who will fund their overruns and will allow years for development. Thomas is now functioning under new management, Michael Scott, a young, hopeful who plans to take on the strongest competitors in the consumer market. Thomas has the personality and temperament of an NT (Intuition-Thinking) Type. NT’s gather data consisting of abstractions and possibilities (N), which they filter through their objective decision-making process (T) (Rutledge, 2008). NTs have a driving force that is a never-ending quest for competence and this is demonstrated by Thomas and his peers as they desire to spend years on development and production, which causes them to pursue products not according to deadlines or costs because it is more about the soundness of the product. NTs are oriented toward continuous improvements and Thomas was scared to enter the faced-paced...
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...Introduction This paper will analyze the personality and temperament of Joseph Thomas, Vice-President of Operations for Global Positioning System to-Go (GPS). Comments will be provided on how Joseph Thomas moved through each of the four (4) stages in the project life cycle. The paper will determine the most appropriate personality traits that Mr. Thomas should adapt to successfully lead the teams for the Garmin product launches. Lastly, a summary of how I would perform differently if I were in Mr. Thomas’s position will be provided. Personality and Temperament of Joseph Thomas Joseph Thomas displayed several different personality traits. The first of which was introversion. He voiced his opinion several times about ways to save time and cost and how to avoid problems but was not assertive enough and was ignored. He also demonstrated a thinking personality. “Thinking people make decisions based on logical analysis” (Lewis, 2003, pg.29). Joseph attempted to use contract manufactures to meet the targeted price point for the GPS. “Temperament is a predisposition to behave in certain ways” (Lewis, 2003, pg.30). Joseph displayed the Idealist or NF temperament. Joseph Thomas’s Steps in the project life cycle The project life cycle consists of four stages; Initiating, Planning, Executing and Closing stages. “A Project life cycle can be used to guide a project team through all the necessary work” (Kloppenburg, Shriberg and Venkatraman, 2003. Pg.15). The initiating...
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...Assignment #2 – “GPS-to-GO Takes on Garmin” After reading the case on GPS-to-GO it was hard to come to the conclusion of Joseph Thomas. Temperament refers to one’s personality meaning are they an introvert or extrovert. Thomas seems to be more of an introvert because when he was in the meeting with Scott and he tried multiple times to get his point across, he was continuously ignored by Scott. Thomas does not seem like a leader that would tell anyone how to do anything. He simply let the project go the way it was going and did not challenge anyone. Yet he wants to convince Scott one way or the other that the project is in great order. Thomas had a last minute meeting with his team to figure out if there is a way the cost could be cut down before he spoke with Scott. He knew the project was over budget for a while but has decided to not speak up about it at all until it was absolutely necessary. Thomas also felt as though he could solve some of the issues of the budget by having the products manufactured outside of the United States. This sounds like a possible solution, but the cost is said to still be over budget. The first stage of the project life cycle is the project initiation. The initiating stage includes establishing the need for the project, understanding the project scope, approximating the time and cost required and securing approval to plan the project in detail (Kloppenborg 2003, p. 14). Joseph Thomas did not approach the first step of the project life cycle...
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...Analyze the personality and temperament of Joseph Thomas Determining someone’s personality temperament is a difficult thing to do even with regular contact with an individual. Personality temperaments are tendencies individuals have and are not set standards how one will always act. Given the difficulty in analyzing a person’s temperament with personal knowledge of an individual all comments regarding Joseph Thomas’ personality temperament are purely speculations based on the short commentary we were given in the book. Having said that it is possible to have an idea of who a person is based on what they focus on as my psychology professor use to say. Joseph Thomas has a lot of focus on logistics within the commentary on the GPS to GO project. He is looking and numbers and possibilities. His speaking is very concrete and his use of tools is also consistent with what is normal, or cooperative (Lewis, 33). Knowing that Joseph works in those two areas, we can determine off the temperament quadrants that he is likely a Guardian, with an SJ Temperament. The SJ temperament tends to be strong at logistics, equal with tactics, and diplomacy but weaker on strategy (Lewis, 38). It can appear that Joseph is good with strategy on a basic reading of the commentary, because he does think of the various ways to create the product in the required sell amount brackets. While I can see how this might be one interpretation of Joseph, I believe that the looking for a different path is not...
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...the income statement, and the cash flow statement. Each of these documents reveals a crucial part of Garmin’s overall business picture, but never a fully complete one (JWMI 530, Week 3, Lesson 1). In addition, it includes a review of Garmin’s capital management, expenditures, and trends as a result of today’s competitive landscape. Balance Sheet Financial Ratio Analysis Garmin Ltd (GRMN) Garmin’s balance sheet represents the snapshot of its financial position on the last day of the calendar year and its strength as a result of its assets and no long-term debt. Garmin (GRMN) generates plenty of free cash flow and has a strong, cash-loaded balance sheet (Harry, 2012). It is important to highlight that since 2008 and year over year, Garmin Ltd. has seen Return on Assets declined 13.70% to 11.30% from 25% in 2009 and Return on Equity (REO) declined 17.5% to 15.40% from 32.90% (See Appendix A and B). Return on Equity encompasses Garmin’s ability to leverage the three pillars of corporate management—profitability, asset management and financial leverage (Montley Fool Staff, 2008). In 2008, Garmin was an asset creator as it had a REO of ~33% in comparison to 2012’s REO of 15.40%. This occurred during the worst recession in 70 years. In my opinion, this number demonstrates that management is running the company very well. Clearly, high expectations, disruptive innovations such Google Maps and the slowing economy have had an impact on Garmin’s capability to maintain its...
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...MM 578 Consumer behavior | GIVE A GARMIN | MARKETING STRATEGY FOR GPS NAVIGATION DEVICE | | Marcus J. Lumpkin | MARKET ANALYSIS Company Garmin Limited is a publicly-traded company that specializes in navigation and communication devices for the public. With world headquarters in Olathe, Kansas, the company has grown from only a tiny number of employees in 1989 to over 7,000 employees worldwide today. (www.garmin.com, 2010) Their most popular item, the GPS navigation system for automobiles is amongst the leaders in the industry for such devices. The company also designs and manufactures GPS devices for use in boats, aviation, hiking, fitness and cellular phone and pda units. Customers The customers of Garmin products can be just about anyone who can drive an automobile, or operate a boat or plane. Customers would also include those engaged in aforementioned activities such as hiking, working out or using a cell phone. More specifically though, Garmin customers are those who are bad with directions and frequently get lost. Customers would also include those who may spend a lot of time travelling by automobile, whether locally or for long distances. Competitors Competitors of Garmin exist in many well known names to consumers of electronics. TomTom is a Dutch navigation device maker and market-leader in the field, and poses the biggest competition to the Garmin brand. However recognized brand names such as Sony and Phillips have since entered the niche...
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