Working in motorcycles industry for more than 100 years makes Harley-Davidson become a well-established company in the business industry, especially in the United States. From the beginning of the journey, Harley-Davidson was purposely attracting the baby boomer riders.
As the riders
approach sixties, the threat for the growth of Harley-Davidson has raised. This
can be seen below where the median age of purchasers of Harley-Davidson motorcycled
is becoming greater. Therefore, to keep and even to increase the growth of
Harley-Davidson, it is important to recruit new riders from the younger
generations.
 |
| SOURCE: Harley Davidson Fact Book, posted November 5, 2007, at http://investor.harley-davidson.com/downloads/factsheet.pdf. |
Another thing to be
put in the strategic issue box is the gender of purchaser.
Even though the main
purchaser of this heavyweight motorcycle is male, however, in 2000s
Harley-Davidson found out that around 1 out of every 10 motorcycle owners is a
female. This number is highly increasing compared to the data in 1980s.
Harley-Davidson is made to understand that defining the new target market for
women is a need-to-do. |
| SOURCE: Harley Davidson Fact Book, posted November 5, 2007, at http://investor.harley-davidson.com/downloads/factsheet.pdf. |
The world is very
dynamic and everything is continuously changing over the time. To cope with the
changes, Harley-Davidson should know where they have to put their shoes. Facing
the new demand situation that baby boomers are no longer becoming their main
target market, Harley-Davidson should redefine the new target market, which is
the younger generation. The company should recognize the youngster needs and
wants toward their consumption on heavyweight motorcycle.
The scanning
analysis has revealed that Harley-Davidson's future success may lie in its product
development. By developing the technology to justify its purchase,
Harley-Davidson may be able to remain successful in the market. Harley-Davidson
should have seen the needs to build a motorcycle to appeal to the younger and
international markets. It is important for the company to know what is going on
in the market, but it is also important to keep their signature on their
product.
Producing and
maintaining the good quality of the products are the crucial part for every
company. The company needs to establish the long term and mutually beneficial
relationship with its suppliers to ensure their raw materials are in a good
quality, relationship with its employee to ensure each employee experts in
their work, and relationship with its consumers to know their needs and wants
and to know their complaints towards product. All is to improve and maintain
the quality of the product. Therefore, the company needs to hold their value
chain in the organization. In this Harley-Davidson’s case, they need to build
strong with the suppliers to get improved in product quality, to have technical
integrity, applications of new features and innovations. This will result in
reduced lead times for product development, and smoother/faster manufacturing
of new product of motorcycle.
Going to global is
another important thing to do. The growth strategies can be used to expand the
business to have more power in the market. In Harley-Davidson’s case, they are
well known as a market leader in the United States. The very high market
share in US makes the other looks not significant in the market. But, when
comes to European and Asian market, the market share is much lower than in the United States.
This means that outside the United
States, the power of rivals are very high.
To overcome this issue, the company should keep trying to expand the business
by identifying and analyzing the current condition in the market.
For the background
story of this study case, you may refer to this source:
Ryan, P.A. & Wheelen T.L.
(2008). Harley-Davidson Inc. 2008: Thriving Through A Recession.
No comments:
Post a Comment