Managing the Transition from Maturity to Decline: Diamond Power Corporation :: essays research papers

Managing the Transition from Maturity to Decline: Diamond Power Corporation   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  This case study, prepared by Richard C. Scameborn, follows the Diamond Power Specialty Company from its humble beginnings in 1903 to its decline in 1991. The birth of Diamond came with the invention of the hand cranked soot blower. As the years and technology progressed, so did the Diamond soot blower. Along with this main product, Diamond also added several other products to its line, but none had the profitability of the soot blower. Diamond had the market to itself for a number of years, but eventually two competitors sprang up to challenge Diamond: Copes-Vulcan and Bayer Company. Competition did not become fierce until World War II, when the soot blower became a major commodity used by the U.S. Navy to clean boilers on board its ships. At this point, the soot blower industry became a seller's market and the need for strategy (both corporate and business) became a necessity for growth and survival.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Diamond Power's main mission at its beginning, to produce soot blowers that would efficiently clean the inside of boiler as it continued working, basically stayed the same up until the addition of competition into the market. At this point, Diamond had to revise its mission to include technological advances to stay ahead of it main competitor, Copes-Vulcan. With the passage of time, production efficiency and technology were not enough. Diamond eventually had to add foreign sales, customer service, and replacement part production to its original plan to keep ahead of the game. By the 1970's, the mission to supply replacement parts and service became one of Diamond's top priorities as it opened parts and service plants in New Jersey, Georgia, Ohio, Texan, Colorado, North Dakota, California, and Washington.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Diamond Power's goals over the years seem to stay pretty congruent with its mission up until the early 1980's. Basically, Diamond's goals included staying on the moderate levels of technology, building a foreign market by exporting machines and parts and establishing joint-venture manufacturing companies overseas, establishing an extensive and profitable domestic aftermarket support system that included minifactories that supplied both parts and service, and to keep the upper hand on the soot blower market share. Diamond Power's parent corporation, McDermott, Inc, utilized several different corporate strategies to try to achieve Diamond's goal of a profitable and extensive aftermarket support system. However, some of the decisions made by McDermott, Inc in regards to its replacement part division caused more harm than good. For example, when a small operator began to copy and sell Diamond replacement parts at a lower cost than Diamond with great success, McDermott