Asahi Glass Company

Matteo Cicconi

Master in Management Università della Svizzera italiana

14/12/2010

CORPORATE STRATEGY

(individual work)

Professor: Dr. Erik Larsen

Asahi Glass Co: Diversification Strategy

Introduction

The case I decided to undertake aims to analyze the “Asahi Glass Company”, focusing on the strategy, that as cornerstone presents the diversification of its products, and obviously on the SWOT analysis of this Japanese corporation.

Toshiya Iwasaki, a former chemistry student, founded in 1907 the Asahi Glass Company in Kyoto (Japan). He decided to set up this company for two principal reasons:

• he wanted to support and sustain the Japanese industrial success;

• he wanted to decrease the Japan's reliance on imports since both the Japanese government and several private entrepreneurs tried to enter in the glass business but they failed.

The main goal of the Asahi Glass “start-up” was to begin and subsequently realize a domestic flat glass mass production, easy to sell on the market thanks to the features of the product.

After several years of growth, the position of Asahi Glass Company in the Japanese market began to strengthen, becoming member of the Mitsubishi Group and so turning into a Multinational Company. This growth and consolidation was possible through the importation of raw materials, the selection of skilled workers and importing technology from Belgium.

As I said above, in the first sentence, the main strategy of the company is the diversification of its products but also important are the joint ventures, acquisitions and the internal growth.

History: from start-up to the World War II

Asahi Glass Company started its production in 1909 and in 1912 it became the first successful and famous glass company in Japan.

In this period of time, till the start of the Second World War, there were the first “Economies of scope” of the company thanks to the development of technological...