Restructuring / Turnaround Strategies Case Study

EMC Corp : The Turnaround

Abstract:
Started in 1979 as an agency to sell office furniture, EMC Corp. had been the leading producer of disc storage devices in the 1990s. However, the company was hit hard by technology bubble burst in 2000 and for the first time in its history it incurred losses in 2001. The same year, Joseph Tucci took over as the CEO and president of EMC and to revive the company he acquired many small and start-up software firms, which would help the company to diversify into the software business. By diversifying its business portfolio, EMC returned to profitability in 2003 and in July 2006, with revenues of $9.6 billion, it was ranked No. 249 in the Fortune magazine's list of America's largest industrial corporations.

Pedagogical Objectives:

• To understand the factors that enabled EMC to become the biggest manufacturer of disc storage devices in the world
• To analyse the reasons for EMC's losses after the technology bubble burst in 2000
• To discuss how the acquisitions of many small software firms enabled EMC to come out of spiralling losses
• To analyse how EMC's transformation from being a hardware manufacturer to a complete solution provider in information management and security helped it to revive its fortunes.

Keywords : Magnetic Storage Devices; Joe Tucci; Mergers and Acquisitions; Restructuring / Turnaround Strategies Case Study; Technology Companies; Diversification; Symmetrix; Add-on memory; Technology Bubble Burst; Information Lifecycle Management; Fortune 500 Companies; Revival of EMC