Case Study: Strategic Planning in Consumer Electronics

Reversing Market Share Decline in TVs, VCRs, andMicrowaves

The Challenge

A major international consumer electronics company was experiencing a sustained and troubling loss of market share in key product lines: televisions, VCRs, and microwaves.

Internal advertising data showed performance to be superior to competitors, and yet sales continued to erode. Different departments —Marketing, Sales, and Product Development — offered conflicting explanations, while none could pinpoint the root cause.

The organisation needed a clear, unifying understanding of what was going wrong — and how to fix it.

Our Approach

Cameron Consultants conducted a multi-layered diagnostic analysis, integrating quantitative insight with cross-functional interviews and customer research:

• Advertising effectiveness was re-evaluated. While the company had measured success by impact on brand recognition, our analysis showed this masked a serious weakness: competitors outperformed on impact on likelihood to purchase — the true commercial driver.
• Customer and consumer interviews uncovered product issues that had gone unrecognised by internal teams.
• Cross-cultural management tensions were revealed, with the international parent enforcing product design choices not aligned with local market needs.
• Sales efforts were overly concentrated in mature, low-growth sectors, while competitors were gaining ground in emerging, high-growth categories.

These insights reframed the company’s understanding of its strategic disadvantage.

The Solution

We led the creation and implementation of a Company Excellence Programme — a clear, practical action plan to address the newly identified challenges.

Simultaneously, the management team undertook Cameron’s High Performance Management process, which enhanced alignment, decision-making, and focus across the leadership group.

Together, these efforts restored confidence and energy in the business — and aligned action around a strategy that addressed real market drivers.

The Outcome

• VCR     sales increased by 50%
• TV     sales rose by 30–40%
• Profitability     improved significantly

By replacing internal theories with data-driven insight, and transforming leadership engagement, the company reversed a damaging market trend and reclaimed its competitive edge.