Research Paper on:
Rolls Royce Strategic Analysis

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issues associated with maintaining a leadership role in an industry while moving forward to take full advantage of market potential. Bibliography lists 10 sources. BWrolroy.rtf  Strategic Analysis -- Rolls-Royce By: C.B. Rodgers - November 2001 -- for more information on using this paper properly!  Introduction The past decade has been one of turbulence for the legendary Rolls-Royce. In the early 1990s, the automotive division was having record sales. For example, Fuhrman and Abelson (1990)  reported that unit sales in 1989 hit their highest level in a decade, even as the average price nudged up above $160,000. By January of 1990, the company recorded a  by 26 increase in sales over the same period a year earlier. Quite an accomplishment, especially in light of the fact that between 1981 and 1983, sales of Rolls-Royce cars  dropped by 35 percent, and only ten years earlier, the company had actually declared bankruptcy. But then in 1998, Rolls-Royce became a division of the equally legendary if not as  prestigious Volkswagen. Shareholders voted to allow VW rather than another German company, BMW, to pay $780 million for the company. However, in a strange operational and financial twist, only  three months later, Volkswagen "had to submit to an agreement that after 2003, [Volkswagen] can only sell Bentleys, the slightly sportier stablemate of the venerable Rolls" (pp. 45). Even though  VW outbid BMW to buy Rolls-Royce, BMW "used some key leverage to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. First, it produces the 5.4-liter, 12-cylinder engines for Rolls-Royces new Silver  Seraph model. The Bavarians threatened to withhold them, a power play that would have forced VW to undertake some expensive re-engineering" (pp. 45). Likewise, Rolls-Royce aircraft engines have experienced