Mattel Corporation

Executive summary

Mattel Corporation deals in the design, production, and marketing of family products and toys. The objective of Mattel Corporation is to keep on creating long-term stakeholder value by providing strong cash flow and being able to deploy it in an opportunistic and disciplined manner as is stipulated in the company’s capital and investment framework. The company is a global leader in the toy industry. This has been possible due to the appropriate utilization of strategic management and planning process. The strategic management and planning process helps the company to develop and implement strategies that give it a competitive advantage over its competitor, such as Lego and Hasbro in the toy industry. The strategic management process is a method used by the managers to come up with and implement a strategy. The implementation of the strategies gives businesses a competitive advantage. Strategic planning is a systematic way of carrying out strategic planning. It involves strategy assessment, strategy formulation, and strategy implementation. Proper use of the planning process helps to design good strategy.

Introduction

Mattel Corporation is an organisation that has specialized in the design, production, and marketing of family products and toys. However, the company's focus is on the production of toys. The company has its headquarters in El Segundo, i.e. in California. It was founded in the year 1945. The company's most popular product is Barbie, which is a popular doll produced by the company. The other types of dolls produced are Monster high, American Girl, Little people, Hot wheel, Thomas and friend, Power wheel, and Fisher-price. In 2013, Ethisphere Magazine named the company as the most ethical among major companies in the world. The Corporate Responsibility magazine ranks the company as number two. The company sells products to more than 150 nations, and it has employed around 40,000 staff in 40 countries.

Listing of the corporation on the NY Stock Exchange took place in 1960 after going public. In the same year, it bought a number of businesses. The company also introduced video games later on. In 2013, Mattel introduced Playground Production, which is in-house film studio. Playground productions deal in productions of TV shows, live events, web series, multimedia, and games.

Mattel Corporation is still the global leader in the toy industry. The global brands, such as American Girl, Fisher-Price, Hot Wheel, and Barbie have helped keep the company at the top of the industry. The market that the company is operating has seen a little maturity, but the company has been able to come up with different types of toys that fit the needs of its end market. The company has made sophisticated toy products. The move has been possible with incorporation of digital properties. The company has managed to capture a greater percentage of sales in the industry of toys. Mattel controls the biggest percentage of the toy market in the fragmented United States Toy market. Out of the 27 percent of the global market controlled be the toy companies from the United States, that is, Mattel, Lego, and Hasbro, Mattel Corporation still has the biggest share of the percentage. The company has also adopted the entry barrier strategy, which helps prevents other competitors from entering the toy industry and the market.

In its attempt of attaining its objectives, the management of the company has come up with the following strategies:

• (i) To issue the company drastic growth by continuing the drive in the core brands, optimizing amusement partnerships, constructing new franchises, and working to increase and leverage its global footprint,
• (ii) To optimize working margins through supporting gross margins in the low-to-mid 50% range in the term that is near and above the range of 50% in the long-term. It also expects to deliver initiatives that are cost saving.
• (iii) To make noteworthy cash flow and persist in its value-enhancing deployment, opportunity, and disciplined.