Case studies
Practice mock
Royal Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco
Oil companies often form joint ventures in order to spread the risk of developing costly assets. Royal
Dutch Shell and Saudi Aramco created a joint venture, called Motiva, in the United States, which was
owned 50/50 by the two parent companies. The joint venture operated three refineries as well as a
distribution business in the US.
Many joint ventures come to an end by being purchased outright by one of the original
partners. This was the case with this joint venture as well. In 2016, the joint venture was
'unwound' when Shell agreed to sell its share of Motivato Aramco, who will now have full ownership
of the company.
1. Explain what factors might have motivated Shell and Aramco to create a joint venture
together.
2. Discuss why Shell may have decided to sell its shares in the joint venture to Aramco.
1- The main factor that could possibly motivated both companies to créate a joint venture is
because os and special purpose or aim that both companies want to archieve by joining their
strategical way of doing business. Base don the information given in the text, is to expand
their distributing their products to the US as well as reshoring the sector of production to
the US for strategic purposes.
2- Shell probably decided to sell it shares to Aramco, firstly because the purpose of the joint
venture could probably have been achived or the strategy for archieving their goals failed. In
second place, both parties arranged to stablish a permament relation by Armanco aquiring
the shares from Shell because how Amaranco manage all aspects from the company ori t
could be an effective arrangement for Shell to expand in a globalized way.
Case study
Vacation segmentation
Founded in 1841, Thomas Cook is one of the world’s oldest travel companies. Today the
business is worth more ra £8.5 billion and serves 22 million customers annually. randt the
company’s success is due to its segmentation using the family life cycle. Families with a ‘Full
nest’ are offered package holidays, which come with kids clubs and all-inclusive dinner
packages. Retirees without children, in the ‘Empty nest’ category, who may seek a relaxing
holiday, can be offered something from the Cruise Thomas Cook rand. ‘Young and single’
people, who seek a more exciting experience, are targeted with the Club 18-30 brand.
1. Explain how Thomas Cook can randt from economies of scale while still operating a
segmented rand strategy.
2. Explain the marketing benefits of Thomas Cook using different brands to target
diverse parts of the vacation market.
1- For thomas being posible to transform his business inside de economies of scale, he must
apply a purchaseing economy of scale by negociating with stackeholder that he relates with,
so purchasing a higher number of package holydays, so to negociate lower external costs
and higher prices for tourists. On the other hand, he could implement new succesful
methods for advertisings for making Brand awarness and as a result, generating more profit
by finding more people that feat in the target market of his company. By implementing
these recommendations, he Will be able to follow the familiar cycle segmentation that he
used before and also pay les costa and produce more outputs.
2- The marketing benefits that Thomas implemented for using different brands to target
diverse parts of the vacation market, will help him to meet in generals terms the main
interest of a hole market. By knowing the main needs from customers and implementing
the marketing mix to his own service, this will lead to a unique selling point of the product in
aspects of: place,promotion,product and Price. In conclusion the use of the marketing
benefits is the ideal option for meeting customers needs from a diverse target markets and
at the same time archieving thomas objectives.
Case format
1. Definition/ one advantage/one disadvantage/ one feature(2)
2. Explain benefits/one adv.-dis. Naming the company+context(4)
3. Explain cost/benefit/adv-disadv (4)
4. Discuss/recommend/evaluate in 20 lines aprox(10)
-Pros/adv
-Cons/dis
-Recommend= backing evidnce of your choice, riskn of the disadvantage
