Analyzing EMC Corporation

EMC Corporation, based in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. with 11,200 employees worldwide, is the world"s leading supplier of intelligent enterprise storage and retrieval technology. EMC is a Fortune 500 company and was ranked ninth on Business Week"s 1998 "Info Tech 100" list of the world"s best-performing information technology companies. In 1998, EMC had an annual revenue of $3.9 billion. EMC designs systems for open system, mainframe, and midrange environments.

EMC is the only company in the world entirely focused on rapidly delivering intelligent enterprise storage and retrieval solutions. This enables companies and organizations to leverage their growing volumes of information into profitability, growth and competitive advantage. EMC Enterprise Storage systems, software products, and services are the leading information access and storage solutions for every major computing platform in today"s business enterprise.

EMC was founded in 1979 by Richard Egan and Robert Marino (the E and M in EMC) as a supplier of add-on memory boards. EMC"s rapid rise in the worldwide data storage market began its major surge in 1989, when the company revised its strategy to align itself with businesses" growing reliance on increasingly vast and complex amounts of electronic data. In 1990 with the introduction of EMC"s Symmetrix product line, EMC became the first company to provide intelligent storage systems based on arrays of small, commodity hard disk drives for the mainframe market.

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Since the in introduction of Symmetrix technology, more than 30,000 of these systems have been sold around the globe and EMC"s annual revenues have grown from $190 million in 1990 to $3.97 billion in 1998. With the introduction of Symmetrix Remote Data Facility in 1994, EMC became the world"s leading storage-based solution for business continuity and disaster recovery. EMC"s portfolio of storage software includes EMC TimeFinder, EMC Data Manager, EMC PowerPath and Symmetrix Manager. With its $445 million in software revenue in 1998, this makes EMC one of the world"s largest and fastest-growing software companies.

The major customers of EMC include the world"s largest banks and financial services firms, telecommunications providers, airlines, retailers and manufacturers, as well as governments, universities, and scientific institutions. These customers rely on EMC"s innovative storage solutions for such applications as online reservation systems, transaction processing, customer billing, year 2000 compliance, the Internet and corporate intranets, business continuance/disaster recovery, data mining and data warehousing. EMC has also formed alliances with the world"s leading software, application and database companies, such as Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, Baan, and PeopleSoft.

EMC is a global organization, and is represented by more than 100 offices worldwide. The company manufactures its products in Massachusetts and Ireland. EMC has R&D facilities in Massachusetts, Colorado, Israel, and France. They also have Customer Support Centers in Massachusetts, Ireland, Japan, and Australia. EMC holds the most strict quality management certification from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO 9001) and its manufacturing operations hold MRP II Class A certification. The company trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol EMC and is a component of the S&P 500 Index.

Richard J. Egan- Founder and Chairman Egan is a founder of EMC Corporation.. He has served as Director since the companies inception in 1979. In 1988, Egan brought the company public and was elected Chairman of the Board. He held the position of President and CEO until January 1992.

Michael C. Ruettgers- President and CEO Ruettgers has held the position of President and CEO of EMC Corporation, since January of 1992. Ruettgers joined the company in 1988 as executive Vice President of Operations and Customer Service, and from 1989 he was EMC"s President and Chief Operating Officer.

• 1979- EMC Corporation is founded by Richard j. Egan and Roger Marino in Newton,
• 1981- 64 kilobyte chip memory boards are developed for Prime Computers.
• 1982- EMC corporate headquarters moves to Natick, Massachusetts.
• 1984- Five years after the company"s founding, annual sales reach $18.8 million, nearly tripling
• 1985- EMC is first to commercially ship denser memory upgrades using 1-megabit Random
• 1986- EMC goes public in April; makes initial public offering on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
• 1987- Corporate headquarters relocates to Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
• 1988- EMC opens its European manufacturing facility in Cork, Ireland.
• 1989- Second major US corporate facility is opened in Hopkinton, Massachusetts.
• 1990- EMC redefines mainframes storage by introducing the Symmetrix 4200 Integrated Cached
• 1991- Several enhancements to the Symmetrix ICDA product line give EMC the ability to compete in the Online Transaction Processing (OLTP) environment.
• 1992- Michael C. Ruettgers is named President and CEO and the company"s stock splits 2 for 3.
• 1993- EMC mainframe storage market share increases from 5% to 15%.
• 1994- EMC introduces the world"s first "terabyte box" and the company surpasses the $1 billion
• 1995- EMC introduces first Symmetrix storage systems for open systems and surpasses IBM as market share leader in mainframe disk storage capacity.
• 1996- EMC becomes leader in the open storage market.
• 1997- EMC extends lead in the enterprise storage and retrieval market.
• 1998- The EMC Effect is felt across the computing enterprise.
• 1999- EMC Corporation announces two-for-one stock split.

There are five forces that shape competition in an industry, barriers to entry, power of suppliers, power of buyers, threat of substitutes, and rivalry & industry structure. These five forces that Porter developed have become a strong framework in helping strategic mangers find answers as to how, or why decision can have an impact on their firm, and the industry they operate in. When analyzed the collective strength of these forces show potential profits of an industry. The company being focused on is EMC, which is in the Computer Peripherals industry.

Barriers to entry are forces that firms must overcome in order to enter an industry. These barriers can be caused from high initial investment, product differentiation, cost disadvantage, access to distribution channels, or restrictive government policies. An example of this could be the phone, or cable companies. There are very few companies that are able to compete within this industry because of the high capital requirements to start off. An enormous amount of time and money would have to be spent on installing lines throughout the country to supply you customers with the services they want.

EMC is in a situation where it has created several barriers to entry. Capital requirements are one of the barriers that EMC has in its favor. In 1979 EMC started its business in data storage which it is now the leading company in its industry. It has offices all over the globe and is the only company in the world to be specifically focused on rapidly delivering intelligent enterprise storage and retrieval solutions. There are very few companies that can compete with EMC because of its name association and large international operation. New entrance into this industry would have to invest large amounts of time and money into research and development. EMC already has the technology and is constantly updating with more advanced services.

Another barrier to entry is product differentiation. EMC is specialized in enterprise storage, which is much different than conventional storage. While conventional storage has been used to back up memory in case of a disaster or, to log companies transactions, EMC started a niche which it has made into a new industry. Enterprise storage has six specific parts that set it aside from conventional storage. They are as follows enterprise connectivity, information centricity, cascadability, information management, information sharing, and information protection. It can be clearly seen that this industry is constantly changing, and new products are coming out every day. If you are not the leader in this new technology then you will not survive. EMC has without a doubt developed barriers to entry.

The threat of substitutes is how easily a product can be interchanged with another. For example if you are going to buy bottled water you decision will ultimately come down to price. An expensive flashy bottle of water can easily be exchanged for a generic store brand bottle at a fraction of the cost. However with services it is a different story. Lawyers for example could easily be substituted if you were looking at the cost. It would be very simple to find a cheap lawyer, however you might end up losing your case.

To get a top of the line service you will have to pay a little extra. EMC is a top of the line service which also offers a very affordable pricing strategy. Its pricing very sensitive with the companies it works with, whether you are a world dominating bank, or a newly started Internet company. EMC has something to offer everyone. What makes EMC even more attractive is its unmatchable customer service.

Customers are always kept in close and frequent contact whether it be for unforeseen problems, or to validate new features. Customers have found that EMC offers the best of both worlds, and that no other company so far can be substituted for it. "We need high capacity, fast performance, a scalable platform, and total data protections. With EMC, we found a complete solution from one provider." Says the General Manager of information technology, at Komercni Banka. This clearly shows the EMC has eliminated its substitutes by offering something that no one else can match.

Rivals in any given industry are a part of competition that businesses have to deal with. For the past several years EMC has not had to deal with many competitor since they offer services and customer support that surpasses any other company that has been looking to get into the the information storage industry. IBM, and Sun Microsystems are two companies that have recently been competing with EMC. These are both large established companies that deal in many different aspects of the technology industry.

Both IBM and Sun Microsystems have begun to compete with EMC"s self started indusrty. The reason for this is because they both have large R&D departments with large budgets that allow development of product comparable to EMC. However since EMC is so focused in their niche market they have a mixture between service and product quality that hasn"t been matched by anyone.

IBM Sun and the other competitor are not focused just on storage technology but they also have many other interest. This makes companies weary of handing over valuable information to a business that could be in direct competition with them. This gives EMC a competitive advantage over any other company since they are well known for tight security. Another advantage EMC has over its competitors is that they are now recognized as the "standard: in computer information back up and storage area.

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