Product Quality - Panasonic Rice Cooker - Case Study Example

Product Quality Report Name Professor Institution Course Date Product Quality Report: Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L Rice Cooker Executive Summary Operating in business world has currently turned out to be more complex particularly in international platform. As the business world changes, the global economic trends keep on shifting. The Panasonic Corporation is one of the companies which have been made to always rely on its product research and development department for innovation. Panasonic Corporation is one of the leading producers of electronic products globally, consisting of more than 622 companies with regards to electronic products. Regarding the competition in the market, Panasonic is a basically established corporation that has previously established its brand name with some of its products. Predominantly, the business deals with a number of electronic and electric products. One such brand is rice cooker. Over a certain period of time, the company has understood that its rice cooker‘s specification and convenience can influence people's way of life which is a major focus for product refinement and development. To make rice cooking much easier and faster the company came up with more enhanced rice cooker; Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L Rice Cooker. Table of Contents Product Quality Report: Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L Rice Cooker 2 Executive Summary 2 Table of Contents 3 1.0 Introduction 4 2.0 Panasonic Rice Cooker Overview 5 3.0 Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L: Product Quality 6 4.0 Panasonic market communication channel 7 5.0 Recommendations 9 6.0 Conclusion 10 7.0 References 10 8.0 Appendices 12 1.0 Introduction Rice cookers are nearly everywhere in Japanese houses. They are very useful for not only people with a busy way of life, but for anybody who hates having to keep an eye at the time rice is cooking and desires that he or she could cook ideal rice always. Nakano (2009) claim that nearly three to four Japanese consume rice no less than once in a day and the most of this rice is cooked in rice cookers. These cookers are therefore made to cook not only sticky rice in Japan, but rice coming across the world; be it long grain, short grain, Basmati, brown rice, white rice, wild rice, Thailand rice, Pakistani rice and even many other grains. With consumers joggling with work and homes, there has been demand for more convenient and easy to operate rice cooker (Squidoo 2013). Panasonic and it’s both local and global competitors such as Zojirushi, Toshiba, Mitsubishi and Aroma Housewares Company among other have been forced to manufacturer rice cookers that make life easier. With the regard to competition, the main concern of this report is to outline the quality of Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L Rice Cooker in comparison to competitors’, describe how is communicated by Panasonic and develop a rating scale for Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L Rice Cooker against its competitors. 2.0 Panasonic Rice Cooker Overview Squidoo (2013) asserts that Panasonic began manufacturing rice cookers based on their National brand in 1957, and turned into one of the first products which the company exported to the US. Panasonic Corporation have undergone numerous technical innovations in the production of rice cooker, from designing the current magnetic-thermostatic switches back in 1961, to launching fuzzy logic to rice preparing in 1991 and induction warming in 1995 (Squidoo 2013). Most Japanese trust Panasonic and regard it as the best home electronics maker, largely on the basis of the repute of their initiator, Konosuke Matsushita who both a businessman and leader in principled management practices (Garvin 1987, p.104). Not amazingly, with the standing for quality comes a little high price tag. The company is also at the front position of Universal Design, manufacturing appliances utilizable by everybody. With rice cookers, one of the palpable accomplishments of Universal Design is the large yellow switch on button writing in black text. In assessments by the people having glaucoma and any other eye diseases, black on yellow was settled on because it was found to be effortless to read the combination of these colors (Squidoo 2013). Based on the most well-known Japanese relative shopping site, Panasonic's newest rice cooker, Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L is positioned sixth ahead of 283 other models, being rated at 4.9 out of 5 stars of customer satisfaction with no exact weaknesses. 3.0 Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L: Product Quality Previously in the development phase, electric rice cookers applied the easy idea of just heat your rice to cook then switching off the heater at the time the temperature goes up to a particular point (Nakano 2009). This concept, however, has been affected very much with regular variation in room temperature and frequently made under-cooked rice. Several manufacturers continued to witness failures in their continuing trial-and-error strategies (Montgomery, Jennings & Pfund 2011). Therefore, this prompted Panasonic to come with better solutions. In the plan, to take advantage of this opportunity and take advantage over their competitors they started manufacturing rice cookers. With changing technology and customer demands Panasonic has gone under phases of innovation to come up with now more efficient and affordable Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L (Consumer Search 2013). Some of the designs that have come before include Panasonic SR-42GHN, Panasonic SR-3NA, and Panasonic SR-WA10 among others. Harvey Norman (2013) states that Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8L is a medium-sized sized ricer cooker which has an intelligent Fuzzy Logic system. Many consumers who have a tight schedule between work and home chores prefer this type of rice cooker simply because its parts are easy to clean after cooking (Harvey Norman 2013). This type of rice cooker has large capacities that make sure that one can cook more rice for a large family or even if the intend to save. The type also helps to get over ones woes like the fast paced and busy life since it is easy and convenient to use because it does not need ones continuous supervision whilst it operates. The Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L rice cookers is tremendously easy to utilize together with the added advantage of the durability aspect. This electrical device also is fixed with a cooking pan which is anodized with aluminum in order that the food elements do not glue to that pan this is unlike Zojirushi which some of its rice cookers stick with rice particles whenever they are used to cook rice. This makes consumers prefer The Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L because of its ease to wash. It is also perfect to be applied even whilst travelling since it is portable with no trouble. Squidoo (2013) argues that this electric rice cooker is designed with the automatic switch-off element in order that someone can just do something else while the rice cooks itself. This quality ensures that someone can multitask but don’t necessarily need to monitor the rice because the automatic feature switch feature will shut off cooker after it is ready. Panasonic can take market advantage with this feature both locally and globally because their rival Zojirushi’s rice cookers do not have automatic switch off button (Consumer Search, 2013). The manufacture of this electric rice cooker is one of major cases where Panasonic has come in to outdo their US Aroma warehouse Company who still produces Rice cooker of lower capacity. For instance Aroma ARC 150SB can only cook produce 5to 10 cups of cooked rice compared to Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L which produce up to 20 cups of cooked rice. This Panasonic electrical device does not produce smoke and flames different from gas cookers which pose risks associated with fire (Squidoo 2013). Comparing three rice cookers from three different companies, that is, Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L, Zojirushi NP-NVC10 and Aroma ARC 150SB in terms of performance, the new Panasonic appliance comes first taking 30 minutes to cook rice. In a nutshell, Panasonic SRDF181WST conserves power compared to the other two. 4.0 Panasonic market communication channel The world has stepped into an Era of Communication and Technology, and this technological advancement has transformed the social platform of Panasonic innovations. This has made communication with the customers to make daily purchases simpler than before. The company continues pushing forward into their responsibility as a top global Business to Business technology solutions business (Panasonic, 2013). Panasonic Corporation is quite serious advertisers on Japanese TV, displaying both images of innovations with not only the known brands but also with their new medium sized rice cooker Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L, as Japanese tend to constantly keep their customers with new innovation, which are more easy to use and can at the same time save their money. That justifies their concept of "Ideas For Life” which is an indication of their guiding force and dedication for what customers can expect from them in the future (Panasonic 2013). Due to increased competition Panasonic have intensified their advertisement of their new rice cooker through other various means such as website, sponsorships, radio, TV adverts and social media. Actually the largest number of consumers of their goods is now in social media, so their focus is now directed on most recognized social sites consisting of Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. The Internet enables clients to compare product features and prices with no leaving of their offices or homes (Akher 2010, p.56). Internet displays both the image and the content where the buyers can relate the new Panasonic rice cooker, Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L and that of their competitors and find the best deals. Panasonic understands that consumers now has less time going to the shop, therefore the company now uses social site pages to advertise their electronic appliances and creates relationship with buyers. This is because consumers visit these social sites on a regular basis (Moeller 2010). Even though the company is a frequent advertiser on radios and TVs, they are not intense as they used to do since people are shift to digital and internet marketing which is a new global interactive medium covering a large geographic al areas. In this context, connecting the company website and the social media of consumers has potentially created a new marketing platform for getting in touch with customers (Moeller 2010, 363). Panasonic have used hypermarkets and Supermarkets as their main channel for household appliances such as rice cookers because of a number of people shop there on a daily basis. This channel has ensured that Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L has found the recognition intended by the company. This channel has also to attracted urban clients to a one-stop shopping braches making sure that Panasonic has overtaken Toshiba in terms of sales with regards to rice cookers. These distribution channels have become abundant and nearly at each sales outlet, the competitors have been created. With specification and reputation of Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L majority of the urban dwellers who want to buy new rice cookers have made it to be on top of their shopping list because of values it offers. Nakano (2009) maintains that all of these marketing and advertising concepts are carried out based on the company slogan of “Ideas for life” which concentrates on offering products and services derived from ideas which will improve consumers’ lifestyles by means of its innovative, relevant and valuable ideas, in an effort to be a Customer Value Creation business. In that manner, it will facilitate Panasonic to realize the optimal environment for cost-effective sales of the business. 5.0 Recommendations Although Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L type of rice cooker is gaining popularity in Japan, the United States and across Europe due to intensive marketing by Panasonic Company, their new rice cooker has not escape criticism from some of the clients. For that reason, the company they have to ensure that they look into some of the customer outcry to build a good customer relationship. To do this it is recommended that; They come up with an easy manual to read so that most of their consumer does not set wrong timing while coking rice. The company makes Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L that has a deep steamer tray which does not allow water to spill all over while heating is going on. They always review markets prices to ensure that rice cooking needs of majority of the people in their target market is catered for. 6.0 Conclusion From this product quality analysis and comparison credits can be given to Panasonic in terms of customer rating. The customers can do not have to watch their rice cook. However, the competition is become stiff and Panasonic must devise new ways on new strategies to counter their local and global competitors like Aroma, Zojirushi, Toshiba and Mitsubishi among others in terms of customer service, price and marketin 7.0 References Akher, SH 2010, Service Attributes Satisfaction and Actual Repurchase Behavior, the mediating influence of overall satisfaction and repurchase intention, Journal of Customer Satisfaction, Dissatisfaction and Complaining Behavior, 23, p. 52-64. Consumer Search 2013. Compare Rice Cookers, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.consumersearch.com/rice-cookers/compare Garvin, D 1987, ‘Competing on the eight dimensions of quality’, Harvard Business Review, Vol. 65, No. 6, p.101-109. Harvey Norman 2013, Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L Rice Cookers, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.harveynorman.com.au/panasonic-srdf181wst-1-8l-rice-cooker.html Nakano, Y 2009, Where There Are Asians, There Are Rice Cookers: How 'National' Went Global via Hong Kong, Hong Kong University Press. Panasonic 2013, Grow stronger with Panasonic, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.panasonic.com/business-solutions/grow-stronger.asp Squidoo 2013, Japanese rice cookers from Zojirushi, Panasonic, National, Mitsubishi, Sanyo and others, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.squidoo.com/japanese-rice-cookers Moeller, S 2010, Characteristics of Service, a New Approach Uncovers their Values, Journal of Sevices Marketing, vol. 24, no. 5, p. 359-368. 8.0 Appendices Categorization criteria Zojirushi NP-NVC10 Aroma: ARC 150SB Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L Capacity 10 cups cooked rice 10 cups cooked rice 20 cups cooked rice Heat source Induction Direct heating direct heating/fuzzy logic Price Est. $690 Est. $35 Est. $99 Power Consumption (watts) 1240 / 1370 N/A 680 Color stainless brown stainless steel white performance 45 minutes 35-50 minutes 30 minutes added accessories rice spatula, holder spatula measuring cup, steam tray, serving spatula rice cup, rice spatula (non sticking), holder spatula Appendix 1: Evaluation based on manufacturer specification Source: Consumer Search 2013, Compare Rice Cookers, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.consumersearch.com/rice-cookers/compare Executive criteria ZojirushiNP-NVC10 Aroma ARC 150SB Panasonic SRDF181WST 1.8 L expected Price $ 600 $ 28 $ 85 Weight Ease of the use interior is flat hence easy to clean non sticking inner cooking pot but lid does not detach no rice sticking particle(easy to wash) Expected Warranty 2 year 1.5 year 1 year customer rating ***** (5 out of 5 stars) ** (2 out of 5 stars) **** (4 out of 5 stars) Appendix 2: Evaluation of the three rice cookers based on the customer reviews Source: Consumer Search. 2013, Compare Rice Cookers, Viewed 31st July 2013 from http://www.consumersearch.com/rice-cookers/compare Read More