Name: Siddhanth Ganesan

ID: sganesan7

Due: 4/8/2015

CORNING INCORPORATED: ACCELERATING 160 YEARS OF INNOVATION

Curran and the rest of Cornings management team learned during the stock
market crash that companies with a long term focus needed a diversified portfolio,
continuous innovation and a ruthless commitment to execution. By 2013, Corning
Incorporated was well diversified I five market segments: Display Technologies,
Environmental Technologies, Telecommunications, Life sciences and Specialty
Materials. In addition, Corning used joint ventures for growth.
AFRs addresses the limitations of batch reactors including mixing control, heat
exchange control and residence time distribution. AFRs also offered high throughput,
easily scalable reactors that replaced traditional batch processes with continuous flow.
AFR technology offered an advantage when precision in time was needed and could
handle a wide range of temperatures, making the compatible with a broad range of
chemical processes. Cornings AFR portfolio offered low flow, standard evaluation, glass
and ceramic reactors that adapted to different applications. The AFRs offered high yield,
quality and safety and numerous economic benefits. Despite these advantages, the
chemical industry was conservative and would not embrace the change until confident
that it was safe and reliable. Responding to this Corning offered a rental system to get
the customers used to the product. This venture failed as chemical companies did not
wish to invest in changing processes that worked. Furthermore the rental model offered
very limited training to customers.
In order to determine whether a substantial market for AFRs existed in China,
Jiang used his connections at CZU to set up a joint Corning-CZU applications Lab
where Quick Feasability tests were run to allow customers to witness the value
proposition and encourage them to invest. The positive feedback received convinced
Cornings management of the potential in the Asian Market. Four areas were identified
as still needing attention: Safety, environmental benefits, time to market and economic
benefit.
Chinas AFR Team segmented customers by need rather than subindustry.
Despite not likely to become a major source of revenue, the team focused on
universities as there were around 3000 in China. Furthermore, by selling to universities,
they were indoctrinating future scientists by getting them used to flow reactor
technology. One of the reasons the team was successful was that developing countries
did not have established industries and had a discovery process for identifying ideal
processes. In order to capture the market, Corning translated the content of its website
into the Chinese language and published on many Chinese websites. Corning
participated in a number of trade shows were their products could be tried out and
current customers gave testimonials. Thus an entrepreneurial approach by the china
team caused sales to China to double every year after 2010.