As per case study, Answer - different example and considering the linking/connect with Alpha will be appreciable. . Question : Discuss Alpha Electronics primary business strategy. Where does the SC strategy fits in the business strategy? What are the implications for SC strategy? .. ... For years Alpha Electronics is one of the Indias most successful consumer electronics firms. In the face of withering competition from the Japanese, however, this firm began to fall by the wayside. Alpha Electronics has remained the exception: Today it is one of the world leaders as a manufacturer of components in mobile communication technology, including cellular telephones, paging devices, automotive semiconductors, and microchips used to operate devices and computers. Alpha Electronics heard the call to battle in the early 1990s. The firm then controlled the emerging market for cellular telephones and pagers but, like many other firms at the time, was a bit complacent and not aggressively focused on competing with the Japanese. Meanwhile, Japanese firms began to flood the world market with low-priced, high-quality telephones and pagers. Alpha Electronics was shoved into the background. At first, managers at Alpha Electronics were unsure how they should respond. They abandoned some business areas and even considered merging the firms semiconductor operations with those of another MNC Electronic company. Finally, however, after considerable soul searching, they decided to fight back and regain the firms lost market position. This fight involved a two-part strategy: First learn from the Japanese and then compete with them. To carry out these strategies, executives set a number of broad-based goals that essentially committed the firm to lowering costs, improving quality, and regaining lost market share. Managers were sent on missions worldwide, but especially to Japan, to learn how to compete better. Some managers studied Alpha Electronics own operation to learn more fully how it functioned; others focused on learning about other successful Japanese firms. At the same time, the firm dramatically boosted its budgets for R&D and employee training. One manager who visited Germany learned an especially important lesson. While touring a plan, he noticed a flag flying in front of the factory emblazoned with the characters P150. When he asked what it meant, the plant manager told him that the factory had hoped to increase its productivity by 150% that year. The manager went on to note somewhat dejectedly that it looked as if only a 60% increase would be achieved. Because Alpha Electronics had just adopted a goal of increasing its own productivity by 20%, the firms managers soberly realized that they had to forget altogether their old ways of doing business and reinvent the firm from top to bottom. Old plants were shuttered as new ones were built. Workers received new training in a wide range of quality-enhancement techniques. The firm placed its new commitment to quality at the forefront of everything it did. It even went so far as to announce publicly what seemed at the time to be an impossible goal: to achieve Six Sigma quality, a perfection rate of 99.9997%. When Alpha Electronics actually achieved this level of quality, it received the prestigious CII -National Quality Award. Even more amazing have been Alpha Electronics successes. The firm has 20 offices and more than 3,000 employees. It is currently number three in market share there in both microchips and cellular telephones. Alpha Electronics controls much of the total market for these products, has regained its number-two position in semiconductor sales, and is furiously launching so many new products that its rivals seem baffled. Today, Alpha Electronics generates over 96% of its revenues in India. Major new initiatives are underway in Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe. Alpha Electronics has set newand staggeringgoals for itself. It wants to take quality to the point where defects will be counted in relation to billions rather than millions. It wants to cut its cycle times (the time required to produce a new product, the time to fill an order, and/or the time necessary to change a production system from one product to another) tenfold every five years. It also wants over 75% of its revenues to come from foreign markets by 2010.