Introduction Operating a business is fundamentally a function of decision-making; not only must an organization decide what industry or industries it will operate in, but also what products or services to offer customers; what customers the organization will service; how those goods/services are produced and marketed; how profits will be utilized and invested and ultimately, how an organization will create sustainable competitive advantage within their industry or industries. Essentially, organizations are faced with a number of “problems” they must then set out to solve. However, despite the resources available to aid in the decision-making process or the reasoning behind any particular choice, not all decisions prove beneficial. It is a sad fact that in business, some decisions do not prove to be the profitable endeavors they appear to be. By the same token, there are some cases in which senior leadership make poor decisions despite what their resources are telling them. One example of this type of situation can be seen in the failed DaimlerChrysler automobile manufacturing company. This paper sets out to analyze the merger between Daimler Benz and Chrysler in 1998, and determine where senior leaders went wrong in the decision making process.
The Daimler-Chrysler Merger By the mid-1990s, Daimler Benz, a German-based auto manufacturer, had established itself as the second largest manufacturer of luxury vehicles in the world market (Main, 2010). The organization’s
The industry for superior luxury cars is a highly exclusive one with a few automotive makers making their presence felt. The major market share is held by Porsche which is known to have formidable rivals like Benz and BMW. The SUV supercar segment is a highly evolving one where manufacturing style localities and units are the decisive forces that ultimately culminate towards the cost of the car.
After Chrysler’s government bailout, there were many changes implemented in order to save the company and one of them being technology. By harnessing technology to improve performance, the company focused its efforts on developing and producing new vehicles that are safe, fuel efficient and reliable. There is much focus on moving towards development of environmental vehicles to reduce pollution and the use of gasoline and concentrate on energy (electric or hybrid) vehicles instead. The company’s success will rely much on how it embraces and moves along with technology.
The automobile industry is known for its constant remodeling and change from year to year. While there are not generally drastic changes, there are societal and cultural changes that
The luxury cars industry is one of the most prestigious mass-production industries in Germany. The country is recognised by many as the native land of the automobile; in fact in 1901 900 vehicles a year were already produced.
"Sheer driving pleasure" is what BMW remarks as the major attribute of itself, "sheer driving pleasure" is what BMW puts as it 's home country slogan, but in what extend is it a pleasure to drive, or better run this multinational company in the aggressive automotive market? To answer this question and give a future outlook on what could be the strategic driving direction not only for its cars, shall be the emphasis of this report. Within this paper, one of the most successful
BMW: Redefining Premium Brand Identity BMW: Redefining Premium Brand Identity MGMT 8700 Strategic Management MBA Trimester 2, 2011 |Patrick Gallagher |20805458 | |Sion Karta |20182345 | |Mark Lim |10468237 | |Wei Zhe Poh |20605321 | |Jackie Tran |20597931 | |Janifer Yap |20841177 | BMW: Redefining Premium Brand Identity |Table of Contents
Thinking critically and making decisions are important parts of today’s business environment. It is important to understand how the decision making process works and the steps involved. The nine steps of the decision making process are: identifying the problem, defining criteria, setting goals and objectives, evaluating the effect of the problem, identifying the causes of the problem, framing alternatives, evaluating impacts of the alternatives, making the decision, implementing the decision, and measuring the impacts. (Decision, 2007.) By using various methods and tools to assist in making important business decisions an individual can ensure the decisions they make will be as successful as possible. In this paper it
Bavarian Motor Works, better known by their acronym BMW, have produced vehicles all over the world for nearly a century. Through those years they introduced innovative technology and superior performance in support of their goal to build the ultimate driving machine. Today they participate in the production of motorcycles, sport utility vehicles, as well as sport and luxury classified vehicles. Bavarian Motor Works is also part of “The Big 3” German automakers, along with Audi and Mercedes. However, in the beginning when the company first came together in 1916, they didn’t even participate in the production of motor vehicles. Within the first four decades of the organization, BMW was environmentally involved in two world wars and experienced crippling occurrences. Plants and corporate building were destroyed and rebuilt as well, as the thousands of employees that went out of work. The company even experienced an ultimatum to risk losing the business for good or merging to survive.
The automobile industry is a tough market where competition is stiff. General Motors (GM) is an automobile company that is trying to stay in this competitive market by having different divisions for each car model. Their idea was to gain a market share by introducing new car models that would generate more sales and could save the firm from going out of business. However, GM, not realizing that having many small divisional companies would increase the cost of producing new car models or improving the old car models, failed to increase sales while losing the customer base. Furthermore, the board of directors were picked as the new CEO’s who had already contributed to the decline of sales, which eventually led them to
Total worldwide sales of premium luxury and entry luxury saloons and sports cars are of the order of 1.5 million units a year (Scheele, 1995: 190). The major luxury markets today are the USA, Germany, UK and Japan. The £21.1 billion UK new car market competes with France and Italy, to be the second biggest in Europe behind Germany (Harbour, 1997: 7,22). The new registration of luxury marques’ cars in 1997 in UK alone was 154,506 units (MAVEL, 1997: 59). In other markets, especially in South East Asia there are, of course, significant sales of luxury cars. However, these are limited to total volume either by the overall industry size or by local market conditions and preferences. Accordingly, the luxury car market overall is currently
Bayerische Motoren Werke, modernly known as BMW, is the German automobile, motorcycle, and engine manufacturing company that was established March 7, 1916. BMW is headquartered in Munich, Bavaria, Germany and is also the parent company of Rolls Royce Motor Cars (“History of BMW”, 2015). BMW’s flourishing success has included the company in the “German Big 3” luxury automakers. The “Big 3” includes BMW, Audi, and Mercedes-Benz as the best-selling luxury automakers in the world (“History of BMW”, 2015). BMW’s technological innovation has been a leading cause to their success. Ultimately, the development and history of their innovation have been foundational to their growth and development.
BMW the ultimate driving machine sells the driving experience more than selling a luxury car. The BMW company is the world’s leading provider of premium products and premium services for individual’s mobility. Karl Friedrich Rapp, a well-known Bavarian Engineer who worked with a German aircraft manufacturer, formed his first company in the suburbs of Munich in 1913, couple years later Rapp found that he was dealing with many problems of financial issues, so he decided to resign the company to Franz Popp and Max Friz that’s when they decided that “This brand was going to change from manufacturing airplanes’ engines to motorcycles, then they began working on their first car in 1928. A couple years later the company decided to go international and start building their cars in the United States in South Carolina.” (1) BMW continues to grow with its goals to be the leading luxury and sporty, automotive manufacturing in the world while reaching the objective to show people a different perspective of a new view of their products.
Mercedes goal is to go beyond the needs of consumers by putting more effort in workforce and transportation technologies. Mercedes also focused on “high-tech quality profit strategies” (Kohler, 2009,pg312), which they believed, would help them have a lead within the global automobile market.
Porsche has been for a long time been established as a car manufacturing automobile firm. Its products have also been changing with the time to reflect the changes in the automobile market as well. It is important for any firm to have a flagship product especially in the automobiles industry. “For Porsche, the year 1963 saw the emergence of a model that will define the Porsche image in the automobile industry for many years; the 911” (Burt, 2002). This model paved way for many changes to be made in the Porsche production line. In line with the legacy of Porsche as a manufacturer of quality automobiles, “Porsche has made many models after the 911 flagship model” (Burt, 2002). This automobile manufacturing has expanded its range of products. In addition to the traditional people’s car that symbolized the product of Porsche, the production of military tanks and sports cars in the recent past is evidence of an increasing range of products from the German automobile manufacturing firm. The 1950s marked an important period in the successful diversification of its products in the automobile industry. Racing cars produced by Porsche were winning races across Europe. “Some of the racing car models produced by Porsche and won major races include the 356 SL model, the Can – Am series, the four-wheel drive 911 Carrera, and the 959 model” (Meredith & Hughes, 1995). Porsche automobile firm has in the recent past has produced
In 2016 the United States did close to $5 billion dollars in trade with other countries, counting imports and exports. Business can be defined as a system in which goods and services are exchanged for money or more another. In a sense, trading goods for other items and services is how economies began. There are risks associated with starting and running a business, which is why it takes someone with knowledge and experience.