BAM 108: Tesla's Online Sales Shift and International Business Impact

This report summarizes an article about Elon Musk's announcement regarding Tesla Inc.'s shift to online-only car sales, analyzing its impact on employees, the industry, and international business. It identifies key stakeholders, including Tesla employees, sales personnel, customers, investors, and management. The report connects the article to Chapter 6, discussing strategies for managing business enterprises internationally, such as planning, leading, organizing, and controlling. Tesla's move to online sales is viewed as a tactical and strategic plan to manage costs, revenue, sales, and organizational growth. The analysis highlights how this decision aligns with the overall future growth of Tesla Inc. in the current digital age. Desklib offers more resources for students.

Running Head: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS 0
International Business
Article Summary
(Student details :)
3/6/2019

International Business 1
Contents
International Business................................................................................................................1
Article Summary........................................................................................................................1
Stakeholders in the Article.........................................................................................................2
Article relation with chapter 6....................................................................................................2
References..................................................................................................................................3

International Business 2
International Business
Article Summary
This paper is about an article written by (Hull, 2019) which is based upon
international business management. The article is highlighting an announcement act of Elon
Musk about the Tesla Inc. The announcement of Elon has shocked entire industry,
employees, managers and international businesses.
In this context, Elon Musk being the chief executive officer (CEO) of Tesla Inc. gave
surprise to many of his employees with the announcement made last week. The
announcement was that electric-cars offline selling will be restricted by the Tesla Inc. itself. It
means that Elon Musk the maker may close most of the physical stores and move to online-
only cars sales, as per the sources (Hull, 2019).
When sales personnel associated with Tesla Inc. found out about this decision of Elon
they almost went into a trauma. The news got out while Tesla published a public blog post. In
addition, the article is providing info about one of the important person involved in
implementation of the online-sales strategy of electric cars as it mentioned the person’s name;
Sanjay Shah. Mr Sanjay has taken on extra responsibilities after his joining at Tesla Inc.
when leaving Amazon.com Inc. during the last summer. Additionally, Sanjay has joined
Tesla at the post of senior vice president of energy operations as well as still supervising that
business. Furthermore, sources used in this article suggested that Tesla has declined to
comment over the sales shift from offline to online beyond that public blog post and hence
Elon Musk emailed to all of their employees post that day (Hull, 2019).
Stakeholders in the Article
Stakeholders in this article written by (Hull, 2019) include important audiences and
following group of people:
 All of the employees of Tesla Inc. are the stakeholders (Sim Sheng & Wahidah,
2012).
 Sales personnel of the international business are the stakeholders

International Business 3
 Target audience which are going to purchase electric cars in future
 Customers who have already purchased electric cars from Tesla Inc
 Investors of Tesla
 Shareholders of Tesla
 Entire management of Tesla
 Future investors and shareholders who wish to stake into Tesla (Hull, 2019).
Article relation with chapter 6
The chosen article is strongly inter-linked with the provided chapter 6 which is
contained strategies of managing business enterprise internationally (Smart Nation and
Digital Government Office, 2018). The chapter comprises many of the international business
strategies to be successful in any relevant industry. For instance, management functions like
planning, leading, managing and controlling are clearly demonstrating by the prospected act
of Elon being the CEO of the Inc. Moreover, the chapter is containing some tactical, strategic
and operational plans (Story, 2011). Hence, Tesla’s efforts of making sales of electric cars
completely online are also part of tactical and strategic plans of Tesla business. From the
perspective of controlling the business functions at Tesla Inc., Elon Musk has monitored
firm’s performance and to manage cost, revenue, sales, profit as well as other important
organizational growth functions the announcement of the future decision has been made
(Goldsmith & Flynn, 2005). In this way, article incident is totally oriented towards the overall
future growth of the Tesla Inc. in this millennial generation (Liu, Liao, & Guo, 2009).
References
Goldsmith, R., & Flynn, L. (2005). Bricks, clicks, and pix: apparel buyers' use of stores,
internet, and catalogs compared. International Journal of Retail & Distribution
Management, 33(4), 271-283.
Hull, D. (2019, 03 05). Tesla Inc. chief executive officer Elon Musk caught many employees
by surprise with his announcement last week that the electric-car maker would close
most stores and shift to online-only sales, according to three people familiar with the
matter. Retrieved from Toronto Star:
https://www.thestar.com/business/2019/03/05/elon-musk-blindsided-tesla-staff-with-
store-closing-plans-according-to-people-familiar-with-the-matter.html

International Business 4
Liu, S., Liao, S., & Guo, J. (2009). Surviving in the digital age by utilizing libraries'
distinctive advantages. THe Electronic Libarary, 27(2), 298-307.
Sim Sheng, H., & Wahidah, H. (2012). A Study on Integrating Business Intelligence into E-
Business. International Journal of Advanced Science, 2(6), 430-434.
Smart Nation and Digital Government Office. (2018). Initiatives. Retrieved 02 14, 2019,
from https://www.smartnation.sg/what-is-smart-nation/initiatives
Story, J. (2011). A developmental approach to global leadership. International Journal of
Leadership Studies, 6(3), 375-389.