Marketing Research Report

First Solar is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of solar panels. The company manufactures a variety of solar panels, panels that cut across all markets from the personal home users to large scale manufacturing firms and industrial estates that are willing to adopt solar energy. There are a number of environmental factors that have favored the existence of this company. To begin with, the general global increase in demand for clean and renewable energy was the fundamental factor, this is a result of elevated global protests by the environmental conservatives concerning non-renewable energy. Additionally, the constant fluctuation of oil prices in the international market over the years, which is due to the Middle Eastern political instability has presented unpredictable complexities (Miller, 2013). These uncertainties have proven to be challenging for companies to entirely depend on oil as their fundamental energy source. As a remedy, most companies have resorted to solar energy as their alternative energy source, these factors have greatly increased the general demand for solar products internationally. With this growing global demand, the company had to adjust appropriately.

In an expansion effort to meet the growing international demand, First Solar strategically acquired Skyton-Energy, a technology provider company that specializes in the manufacture of integrated systems for monitoring and controlling energy systems, and a dominant energy service provider around Europe (Tyagi, Rahim, Rahim, Jeyraj, & Selvaraj, 2013). This strategic acquisition not only expanded the company’s services across Europe, but also up-scaled the company’s production rate. Additionally, in an effort to greatly reduce its costs of production, First Solar in its strategic acquisitions, purchased TetraSun. TetraSun was a highly innovative and energy efficient company that used copper metallization technology instead of silver in the manufacture of photovoltaic cells (cells within the panel). Fast Sun figured it could use the technology to upgrade the quality of its solar products, this helped in securing markets like japan and Europe that don’t use any form of cadmium (an element that is used to make the photocells in a solar). These acquisitions improved the production scale and the quality of the PV power products.

As part of the company’s social responsibility and attempt to conserve the environment, Fast Solar has programs put in place that ensure that the solar products are recycled. Photovoltaic (PV) cells used as the basic unit of solar panels are non-biodegradable and therefore are harmful to the environment. Fast Solar has ensured that the repossession of the dead or broken solar systems are taken back to the manufacturing plant for recycling and treatment (for the cell elements that cannot be recycled). Additionally, the company offers installation and maintenance programs as part of their value addition to the customer services. As a way of acquiring statistics on the operation and research purposes of their products, Fast Solar sends a crew of technicians and researchers to their PV power installation sites. This has greatly improved the relationship between the company and its customers and upscaled the general company brand. Most importantly, the best of the customer value additions services is the replacement policy (Dyllick, 1999). When the solar product defaults before the warranted time, the company guarantees replacement or repairs depending on the type of complication developed.

Solar systems are renowned for being expensive, this has resulted from not only high cost of production the manufacturing companies’ faces but also the high cost of raw materials. Fast Solar is working on an economical way of manufacturing efficient solar panels. With the numerous acquisitions, among them is the innovation company (TetraSun), this branch of the company is working on a new economic way of generating photocells, in a bid to reduce the cost of production, together with the constant technological advancements, Fast Solar is promising a more advanced and efficient solar system. Additionally, in an attempt to make the solar systems more affordable the company is attempting to decentralize its manufacturing firms and allocate sub-manufacturing plants and assembly branches to different regions around the world. Generally, shipping already manufactured products is more expensive compared to shipping parts of a product. Therefore, this effort will reduce the transportation costs, which eventually will reflect on the price of the final consumer product. It is predictable that in the near future, with the constant advocacy for clean and renewable energy by the environmental conservatives, there will be high demand for solar energy, Fast Solar is planning to be a leading producer of clean energy equipment like the sun-powered PV power systems (Morton, 2006).

With the hopes of becoming a leading producer of clean energy, Fast Solar has adopted strategic differences that distinguish it from its competitors. One of its main differentiation strategies is the specialization in mega solar power plant project. The company has channeled a greater percentage of its resources to the specialization in the construction and maintenance of mega-PV power plants for government corporations and industrial estates as its differentiation strategy. Additionally, Fast Solar as a way of promoting mega-PV power solutions offers credit financing with defined payments plan for PV power installation projects, this is due to their firm beliefs in the strong financial stability of the energy industry. And lastly, Fast Solar offers bankable systems as part of the PV power system, these power banks are used to store solar power for usage during the night, as a result, they offer a complete package of solar power. These differentiation strategies give Fast Solar a greater competitive advantage over its competitors.

With comparison to the Geek Squad case study, there are always environmental opportunities, especially with the current trends of changing technologies. With the adoption of these new technologies, it brings newer environmental opportunities with them. Moreover, while exploring these business opportunities, one must always have room for advancement. These advancements are mandatory for the survival of the business as consumer taste and preference is always dynamic. Just as the geek squad adjusted themselves with staff training on every new technology before it is released to the market, so did Fast Solar. Additionally, an organization should always be on a constant lookout for potential acquisitions or mergers. These acquisitions expand not only the revenues but also the services offered by the firm and therefore are considered crucial to the development of any organization. In conclusion, it is important for an organization to conduct a thorough evaluation of the environmental forces so as to establish an accurate consumer profile.

References

Dyllick, T. (1999). Environment and competitiveness of companies. International Environmental Management Benchmarks, 55-69.

Miller, D. (2013). Why the oil companies lost solar. Energy policy, 60, 52-60.

Morton, O. (2006). Solar energy: A new day dawning?: Silicon Valley sunrise. Nature, 443(7107), 19-22.

Tyagi, V. V., Rahim, N. A., Rahim, N. A., Jeyraj, A., & Selvaraj, L. (2013). Progress in solar PV technology: research and achievement. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 20, 443-461.