Logitech

Best known as one of the world’s largest producers of computer mice, Logitech is in many ways the epitome of the modern global corporation. Founded in 1981 in Apples, Switzerland, by two Italians and a Swiss, the company now generates annual sales of over $1.5 billion, most from products such as mice, keyboards, and low-cost video cams that cost under $100. Logitech made its name as a technological innovator in the highly competitive business of personal computer peripherals. It was the first company to introduce a mouse that used infrared tracking, rather than a tracking ball, and the first to introduce wireless mice and keyboards. Logitech is differentiated from competitors by its continuing innovation, high brand recognition, and strong retail presence. Less obvious to consumers, but equally important, has been the way the company has configured its global value chain to lower production costs while maintaining the value of those assets that lead to differentiation.

Nowadays Logitech still undertakes basic R&D work (primary software programming) in Switzerland, where it has 200 employees. Indeed, the company is still legally Swiss, but the corporate headquarters are in Fremont, California, close to many of America’s high-technology enterprises, where it has 450 employees. Some R&D work (again, primarily software programming) is also carried out in Fremont. Most significantly though, Fremont is the headquarters for the company’s global marketing, finance, and logistics operations. The ergonomic design of Logitech’s products – their look and feel – is done in Ireland by an outside design firm. Most of Logitech’s products are manufactured in Asia.

Logitech’s expansion into Asian manufacturing began in the late 1980s when it opened a factory in Taiwan. At the time, most of its mice were produced in the United States. Logitech was trying to win two of the most prestigious OEM customers – Apple Computer and IBM. Both bought their mice from Alps, a large Japanese firm that supplied Microsoft. To attract discerning customers like Apple, Logitech not only needed the capacity to produce at high volume and low cost, it also had to offer a better designed product. The solution – manufacture in Taiwan. Cost was a factor in the decision, but it was not as significant as might be expected, since direct labour accounted for only 7 percent of the cost of Logitech’s mouse. Taiwan offered a welldeveloped supply base for parts, qualified people, and a rapidly expanding local computer industry. As an inducement to fledging innovator, Taiwan provided space in its science-based Industrial Park in Hsinchu for the modest fee of $200,000. Assessing the opportunity as a deal
5   PBA4802   OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2018 PORTFOLIO EXAMINATION

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that was too good to pass up, Logitech signed the lease. Shortly afterward, Logitech won the OEM contract with Apple. The Taiwanese factory was soon out-producing Logitech’s U.S. facility. After the Apple contract, the Taiwan plant also started service Logitech’s other OEM business, and the plant’s total capacity increased to 10 million mice per year.

By the late 1990s, Logitech needed more production capacity. This time it turned to China. A wide variety of the company’s retail products are now made there. For example, one of Logitech’s biggest sellers, a wireless infrared mouse called Wanda, is assembled in Suzhou, China, in a factory that Logitech owns. The factory employs 4,000 people, mostly young women such as Wang Yan, an 18-year-old employee from the impoverished rural province of Anhui. She is paid $75 a month to sit all day at a conveyor belt plugging three tiny bits of metal into circuit boards, which she does about 2,000 times each day. The mouse Wang Yan helps assemble sells to American consumers for about $40. Of this, Logitech takes about $8, which is used to fund R&D, marketing, and corporate overhead. What remains after that is the profit attributable to Logitech’s shareholders. Distributors and retailers around the world take a further $15. Another $14 goes to the suppliers who make Wanda’s parts. For example, a Motorola plant in Malaysia makes the mouse’s chips and another American company, Agilent Technologies, supplies the optical sensors from a plant in the Philippines. That leaves just $3 for the Chines factory, which is used to cover wages, power, transport and other overhead costs.

Logitech is not alone in exploiting China to manufacture products. According to China’s Ministry of Commerce, foreign companies account for three-quarters of China’s high-tech exports. China’s top 10 exporters include American companies with Chinese operations, such as Motorola and Seagate technologies, a maker of disk drives for computers. Intel now produces some 50 million chips a year in China, the majority of which end up in computers and other goods that are exported to other parts of Asia or back to the United States. Yet Intel’s plant in Shanghai doesn’t really make chips; it tests and assembles chips from silicon wafer made in Intel plants abroad, mostly in the United States. China adds less than 5 percent of the value. Intel’s U.S. operations generate the bulk of the value and profits.

Question 1: Analyse and explain the configuration of Logitech’s global value chain.               (20 marks)

Slide 2: (This slide must have the following heading – for each configuration add a new row to the table) Configuration Why this configuration?

Question 2: To what extent can the different trade theories in the prescribed book explain Logitech’s configuration of its global value chain? Analyse the relevance of each theory.               (60 marks)

Next slides (maximum 3) must all have the following heading. For each theory add a new row to the table. Theory To what extent can the theory explain Logitech’s configuration of its global value chain?

Question 3: Which of the theories, in your opinion, give the best explanation of Logitech’s global value chain? Clarify and discuss your choices.