Mattel, Inc. is the largest toy company in the world. This company designs, to manufacture, markets, and distributes a large amount of different toy products to over 150 countries worldwide.
From Picture Frames to Mattel Toys (1945-49)
The founders of Mattel, Inc were Elliot and Ruth Handler 1945, where they lived during a fast changing postwar time. Handler started with designing light fixtures and soon started making furniture, which they sold out of their garage. They extended their product into making giftware and costume jewelry, and this soon became a $2 million enterprise. To remain competitive, Elliot wanted to change his direction into a new business approach. Ruth Handler decided to hook up with her old friend, Harold “Matt” Matson, and they together started Mattel Creations, with Elliot as the designer for the products. Mattel, the name, came from mixing Matson’s last name with Elliot’s first name. Matson soon became ill, and had to leave the company.
With the scrap left over from making picture frames, Elliot started on his first dollhouse furniture. Some of their first toys were the “birdy bank”, and the “make-believe makeup set” and these products helped the Handlers break even with their expenses and costs. The first hit product in the toy industry was the “Uke-A-Doodle, a miniature plastic ukelele, and soon to follow was the plastic piano with raised black keys.
There were some lessons that the Handlers had learned in the toy industry in the beginning, and that was that child participation was very important for any quality toy and that children should be able to interact with a toy and want to play with it for long periods of time. Also, they had learned that a toy with lasting appeal stood for a basis for...
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...cisions were made and the company was forced to pay $122 million to settle cases with lawsuits filed by the shareholders who felt there again was misleading information on the company’s success. Hard times took a positive turn when the company focused on Blockbuster toys like Harry Potter, Spongebob Squarepants, and Diva Starz. Mattel continued to sell hot wheels and Barbie, their all time best sellers. Moving on with new generations, Mattel partnered with computer game and toy companies and continued to be a growth company, besides their few obstacles. Eckerd continue to run the company and followed the improving bottom-line approaches rather than top-line. Mattel continues to grow faster in international sales compared to their competitors. The company has made its footprint into history as being the largest toy manufacturer, seller, and distributor in the world.
Initially, the technological toys in question do not teach their owners the importance of responsibility. Consider the following question Frank Mullin poses in his article Love In the Time of Robots: “...what does a child
When Charles Lazarus opened a furniture store for babies in 1948, he never dreamed it would turn into one of the biggest selling toy stores in the world. Charles named the store Children’s Bargain Town. As time passed, Charles added additional items, such as baby products, tricycles, books and toys for older children. Noticing that toys break and go out of style, Charles played upon this and added more toys to his stores. Nine years later in 1957, he opened a second store and decided to rename the chain, Toys “R” Us since the previous name would not fit on the sign.
The Walt Disney Company is a multi-billion dollar enterprise that controls and maintains vast interests in various multimedia companies in the United States and around the world. What started as a simple love for children’s entertainment of a sample cartoonist soon became a revolutionary icon in the world of entertainment and business.
Mattel wants to improve their execution of the existing toy business and globalize their brands; extend their brands into new areas; identify new trends, create new brands, and enter new industries; develop people and improve productivity by simplifying processes and maintaining customer service levels. Mattel wants to make a positive impact in children’s lives around the world by using unrivalled creativity and innovation to create high-quality toys that will be loved by children and trusted by parents.
In 1945, Ruth and Eliott Handler founded Mattel – one of Americas leading manufacturing companies of today. The idea for the Barbie doll was conceived when Ruth watched her daughter play with adult paper dolls. She noticed the importance of being able to change the doll's clothes, and decided to create a three-dimensional fashion doll, naming her Barbie after Barbara (her daughter). At the time, the toy market was dominated by baby dolls and toddler dolls. Barbie was a new conception that became a worldwide hit. Since her debut in 1959, Barbie has remained one of the most popular toys of all time. There are two Barbie's sold every second, and more than one billion dolls have been sold around the world (Maine, 2000, cited in Slayen, 2011).
Walt Disney began in 1923 with a short film called Alice’s Wonderland. It was co-owned by Walt Disney and his brother Roy Disney. Disney moved forward into the future with very popular filmed entertainment such as Mickey Mouse, Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi and so many more until the death of Walt Disney in 1966. Walt Disney was then successfully supervised by Walt’s older brother, Roy Disney, until his death in 1971 after the completion of his brother’s dream, Walt Disney World. It was in 1983 that Disney expanded its operations to include the Disney Channel and the Touchstone Pictures film label. When the new president and CEO, Michael Eisner and Frank Wells, came onto the scene they set out to maximize the company’s assets by opening its famous movies up to the TV syndication market and video cassettes. With the classics easily accessible and available at a lower cost the company grew to greater heights. The success continued in 1988 when Disney movies hit new box office heights bringing in more than $100 million. Then between the years of 1989 to 1994 chart toppers like The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and the Lion King launched the entertainment company to even greater heights. The films were grossing between $200 and $783 million...
These past few years haven't quite been all fun and games for John Eyler, chairman and CEO of Toys "R" Us. Shortly after joining the company in January 2000, Eyler set about revamping Toys "R" Us to better compete in the marketplace while brushing up the company's image. But a downturn in the economy together with the effects of 9/11, not to mention the West Coast port lockout, wasn't part of the plan.
Toys R Us Inc. revolutionized the toy industry more than four decades ago with its big-box, low-price stores. Toys R Us may be synonymous with toys, but also has its fastest-growing business in Babies R Us, which sells children's clothes, furniture and accessories. The company opened new stores and planned to build new additional Babies R Us stores.
Toy World, Inc is a manufacturer of plastic toys for children, founded in 1973 by David Dunton. In the past, the company's production schedules had always been highly seasonal, reflecting the seasonality of sales. Jack McClintock, president and part owner of this company, is considering a proposal to adopt level monthly production for the coming year.
Ruth Handler watched her daughter Barbara play with paper dolls, and noticed that she often enjoyed giving them adult roles. At the time, most children's toy dolls were representations of infants. Realizing that there could be a gap in the market, Handler suggested the idea of an adult-bodied doll to her husband Elliot, a co-founder of the Mattel toy company. He was unenthusiastic about the idea, as were Mattel's directors.
After a trip to Germany, Ruth Handler, the co-founder of the Mattel toy company, was inspired to create the Barbie doll. During Handler’s time in Germany, she discovered the Lili doll. This specific doll was intended for adult males, due to the doll’s wardrobe. Typically, the Lili doll was dressed in lingerie or swimsuits, portraying the image of a sexy young woman. After Handler learned about the Lili doll, she began to realize that her daughters did not have a doll that was not a baby figure. She believed the toy industry was training young women for what was customary, being a mom. Through Handler’s realization, the Barbie brand was created, in an attempt to change the toy business.
P’kolino’s story is all about passion for superior products and how they can change people’s lives. Founded by Antonio Turcos-Rivas and J.B Schneider, the Company’s goal is: to “make better products to improve play at home”. In the course of developing safe and quality products, implementing and marketing other strategies, P’kolino Company aims at improving children’s play thus , improving sales by $51million (Bygrave and Andrew, 2008). The Company’s goal was comprehended during their MBA’s study. During their study, the two entrepreneurs began a thorough research and development project with more than twenty international design students.
... in the toy industry is to make toy safety the number one priority and to fulfill the customers’ needs.
The primary goal of The Walt Disney Company is to become one of the world’s leading producers and providers of not only entertainment, but also information (The Walt Disney Company, 2014). The company aims to achieve this by utilizing its immense brand portfolio so as to differentiate services, content, and consumer products. While this is the overall goal, there exist other innate milestones that essentially touch on socially responsible business in enhancing sustainability. They include, but are not limited to; zero net greenhouse gas emissions, whereby the company aims to have reduced net greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2020; zero waste, whereby Walt Disney hopes to achieve a 60% reduction in waste from
Top managers should be reminded that they are ultimately responsible for the quality of a product and the company. Quality management is one of the keys. By defining quality in operational terms, understanding the costs and benefits of quality, recognizing the consequences of poor quality, and recognizing the need for ethical behavior (Stevenson, 2012), will lead to a more productive operation. If Toys, Inc. specifically doesn’t want to hire additional positions to inspect quality they could outsource to a company such as SATRA whom from its website states, “SATRA can assess the risk of injury from a toy, as well as carry out analysis for the presence of restricted metals such as lead, chromium and mercury(2015).” Quality is the ability of a product or service to consistently meet or exceed customer expectations (Stevenson, 2012). Quality when it comes to manufacturing of toys especially those that have moving parts also brings in safety concerns. “Market watch officials and technological experts have warned parents to pay more attention to the quality of toys they purchase to better protect their children (Hazell, C 2011).” Parents will associate a poorly made toy, especially one that already knows that it’s poorly made by having a trade-in program as potentially dangerous for their son or daughter. Continuing to have customer dissatisfaction will further question the quality of our product and in turn the safety of our