Case SummaryThe South Korean multinational conglomerate, LG, is a privately held powerhouse in many of the industries where they compete. Their current focus is on household appliances, electronics, artificial intelligence, smart homes, robotics, and some partnerships in the electric vehicle components space. LG Electronics recently formed a joint venture with Canadian based Magna to manufacture electric vehicle components and the joint venture is valued at about one billion US dollars (Layson, 2021). They also expect to double their sales, through LG Chemical, of battery cells to Tesla for the electric vehicle market. The LG brand is respected in its industries and stands for quality and advances in technology. However, LG made critical decision in its smartphone business recently. What happened to LG cell phones? In fact, they have announced that on July 31, 2021, they will be exiting the market. Over the past six years, the cell phone division had lost $4.5B and Koo Kwang-mo gave an ultimatum to the LG cell phone team to make the cell phone business profitable in 2020 or it would be gone (Amadeo, 2021). It was not profitable, so LG tried to sell the business but there were no interested parties, especially if LG wanted to protect its brand reputation.

4. Suppose you are a CEO of LG Electronics and set back a clock a few months before you made decision to withdraw the business. What is your decision? Still you want to withdraw the smart phone business? Why or why not?