The
SanDisk corporation was founded in 1988, and has since become the largest supplier of flash memory data storage products in the world.
SanDisk design, manufacture, market and supply each of their products. The company was formed by the now CEO, Dr. Eli Harari, who is an expert in non-volatile memory. He has built the company upon the ideas of flash memory, with main bases of flash media for use with digital imagery and audio devices. Today, most non-volatile memory solutions found in products will be either manufactured or use designs created by
SanDisk.
SanDisk's main headquarters are based in USA (Milpitas, California), although the company has 18 other sites worldwide. Distributing the company in this way gives them a large advantage in a variety of areas. Relationships can be built with surrounding companies and cost of the land in some areas may mean that the company can save a lot of money by holding their sites elsewhere. International relations are very useful for
SanDisk being a large worldwide company. They may gain new people with expertise in different countries, increase coverage and acquire relationships with the large companies there too. This would mean that the growth of the company is allowed to increase dramatically.
At the moment,
SanDisk employs just over 3000 members of staff (currently standing at 3,565). The company states that it will have a management team and a board of directors (averaging at about 7 members of the board). The management team is made up of a CEO, COO and CFO, Eli Harari (founder), Sanjay Mehrota and Judy Bruner respectively. The board consists of 7 members and is led by the CEO, Eli Harari. Each member of the board is elected via stockholders elections every year. Eli Harari is responsible for the running of the company, to make sure everyday operations are running correctly. He is also responsible to informing the board about any necessary information and discussing it with them. The board then need to make sure that the management as a whole is running efficiently, effectively and ethically. The
SanDisk corporation follow these rules strictly and have created many documents informing the staff and the management teams how to go about running the business.
In November 1995,
SanDisk decided to become a publicly traded company (NASDAQ:SNDK). This meant that the company was no longer a privately owned business and that the public would be able to buy corporate shares in the company. This means that securities of
SanDisk are owned by a large amount of investors. Many large businesses do this once they expand in order to raise funds to provide new services to the company. By this act,
SanDisk's revenues increased and in 2007 revenues were as high as £2.65 billion.
SanDisk chose to become a public company in order to expand their business. They were able to increase manufacturing and therefore sell more products. It enabled them to achieve some of the goals they had set themselves.
The downside to being a publicly traded company is that it is difficult to know who the shareholders in the company are. Private companies know who has a share in their company and all their financial details are kept private. Public companies need to reveal all the financial information of their business, therefore giving other companies an idea of their financial situations. This may be useful for other companies who may see an advantage in their favour, maybe via a failing company which they can purchase or where they stand.
SanDisk has a very powerful business model, consisting of it's vast intellectual property (Media designs etc.) and manufacturing capabilities. There are four main areas to
SanDisk's business model, as follows:
- License Royalties
- Manufacturing Capabilities
- Technological Expertise
- Retail Operations
"it is the only company in the world that has the rights to manufacture and sell every major flash card format and USB flash drive"
We can see from this statement just how much of an advantage
SanDisk actually has over other companies.
SanDisk has accumulated it's large amount of media ideas and products, and has patents on over 1000 of them. This allows the company to build an advantage in their market and expand with the overall income it receives.
SanDisk is able to use their property so far as a business strategy as they have cornered their market. Therefore they can use what they have in order to move forward.
The market value of
SanDisk shows that the company itself is very competitive in it's field. At the moment,
SanDisk's corporation shares are worth $14.09 each. So far there have been 226.15 million shares bought in the company. The Market value or capitalization is calculated by multiplying these two values. This gives us around $3.19 billion. The share price trend of
SanDisk over the past few days has shown an increase in value and over the past month shows that the share price seems to be on a rise again. 2008 showed a substantial decrease in the value of shares for
SanDisk. This may have been due to the worldwide recession which saw
SanDisk almost having to release employees to fix their financial status.
Leading up to 2008,
SanDisk's share value was around $40-$50 with a record high of $72.83 on january the 13th 2006. During 2008 this value dropped to $5.32, although this may be due to the recession at the time. As the values are rising again, it seems that
SanDisk should be able to regain their market value again as they are in demand, with the digital equipment used today.
If we look at the market for computer storage devices, we can clearly see that
SanDisk is in the top 5 in their field with the second highest recent percentage price gain and the fourth highest market capitalization.
Overall, we can see that
SanDisk is a large company possessing a lot of intellectual property which it uses to gain a great advantage in the market. Many companies rely on designs or products from
SanDisk, and the company is still expanding ever since its transfer to a public traded company. The company should increase in value in the future as it is still making advances in its products.
Works Cited
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The Market’s Birthday Gift to Me: SanDisk Hammered 15%. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from Israel Value:
http://israelvalue.blogspot.com/2007/10/markets-birthday-gift-to-me-sandisk.html
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SanDisk
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http://www.sandisk.com
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Sandisk Corporation Corporate Governance Principles Of The Board Of Directors. Retrieved april 4, 2009, from
SanDisk Corporation Web site:
http://media.corporate-ir.net/media_files/irol/86/86495/gp.pdf
SanDisk Corporation. (2007).
Business Management System / Environmental Management System Policies. Retrieved April 4, 2009, from
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http://www.sandisk.com/Assets/File/pdf/BMS%20EMS%20Policies%201-17-08.pdf
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