1. Has TomTom done the appropriate planning to operate strategically and competitively?
2. What opportunities and threats do you see for TomTom? What macro-environmental trends contribute to your analysis?
3. Use the competitive forces model to determine strategic actions for TomTom.
4. Provide distinctive/core competencies, resources, and capabilities that set TomTom apart from the competition. Include a SWOT analysis. What strategy suggestions can you provide for TomTom?
5. Do you perceive TomTom as a differentiation, low cost, or focused provider? Explain your answer.
6. How has TomTom's acquisition of map creation created value for the company?
7. What contributions and costs have TomTom's acquisitions and partnerships made to the organization? Explain your answer.
This case traces TomTom's quest for market leadership with technology, expansion of its customer base, distribution power, prominent brand image, and acquisitions. With a vision to create a travel companion that gets people from place to place safer, faster, and better informed, TomTom has raced ahead with R&D initiatives and acquisitions to help meet its objectives of better maps, better routing, and better traffic information. Multiple acquisitions have paved the way for TomTom to obtain a larger customer base, greater workforce diversity to meet international needs, and vertical integration for creating the maps. To enable or broaden their service to individual customers, automobile manufacturers, the aviation industry, business enterprises, and the coast guard, TomTom has also partnered with others to optimize their offerings in both products and platforms. TomTom, being a global provider of navigation services and products, having billions in sales, and as the largest producer of satellite navigation systems in the world, faces growth rate declines, increased alternative platform competition, and macro-environmental impacts. In the wake of these negative forces, TomTom recognizes international, first mover, and economies of scale opportunities that could continue to distinguish them from the competition?