Business Analysis : Porsche Automotive Group

Porsche is a luxury standard in the automobile industry. With the emergence of the Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) the Porsche Company has thrown their hat in and made a positive threat to all other luxury automobile manufacturers. The story of Porsche began in the Czech Republic and almost died during the Adolf Hitler reign. The owner Dr. Porsche was summoned by Adolf Hitler to help with the Volkswagen assembly. Soon after the war he was arrested and jailed for his participation with the German Nazi’s. Throughout the years Porsche developed over 11 types of series and continues to thrive making Porsche the name synonymous sports luxury. The major competitors of Porsche have not been able to surpass the Porsche company due to having outside influences interpose their ideas to implement new vehicles. Solely one family owns the Porsche Company, and this has allowed them minimize the amount of outside influences to steer them away from their core competencies. In this paper you will read about the history, the major competitors, the financial performance and condition. While reading you will understand a SWOT analysis of the Porsche Company and will be able to understand why Porsche is the premier Brand that it is.

The Great Recession is a term that represents the sharp decline in economic activity during the late 2000s, which is generally considered the largest downturn since the Great Depression (Investopedia , n.d.). During the Great Recession many firms cut prices, but quietly. The only firm that stood rock solid was the industry leader LVMH, which claimed that it never puts its products on sales at a discount (Parks, 2016). The bloodbath in the Great Recession forced the weaker players such as Christian Lacroix and Escada to file for bankruptcy. However, it made stronger players such as LVMH even more formidable. They benefitted from an established pattern in high fashion, the flight to quality (Parks, 2016). In other words, when people have less money, they spend it on the best. As the recession became worse, many middle-class customers in economically depressed, developed economies began to hunt for value instead of triviality and showing off (Parks, 2016).

Overall there are a small number of competing vehicles and small different niche’s within the EV and green market. It is extremely difficult for new firms to enter the industry. It is difficult because of the existing competition and the extremely high fixed costs associated with entering the marketplace. Firms must invest in R&D, legal, production, sales, quality control and more before even entering the game. This isn’t as big a concern for existing firms. Existing firms in the automobile market can shift resources in R&D, manufacturing and other production capabilities towards EVs. Nissan, Ford, GM and others are all

Creating a brand is one of key things that each company should create and fight for. Creating brand and strong personality is a piece of the chain that one company can’t live without. This is a case where we are going to research and discuss the brand image and maintenance of the brand of Porsche Company. Porsche has well established brand image of a company that produces sports cars with high quality. This brand image was put on test when Porsche Cayenne was realized.

a. Traditionally Porsche has developed a low volume and increasingly fragmented auto market. The availability of these high end models created an image of exclusivity. And this image is very important to the Porsche customer and they want their car to represent how successful they are. For the traditional Porsche customer the 1st 3 steps in the buying decision may be skipped or gone through a bit quicker and go to steps 4 and 5 because they already know about the Porsche and they already know what they need in

The Porsche Automotive Group firm has been considered to be a benchmark of precision within the market for decades. According to Henderson & Reavis (2009), “By 2007, Porsche had become the world’s most financially profitable automaker on an annual per unit basis.” They then go on to mention, “This is especially impressive when considering that Porsche produces over 100,000 vehicles annually.” From Porsche’s inception their focus has been firmly placed on the finer points of engineering. Sinse the 1930s this firm has been translating their expertise of engineering into the esthetic design of their vehicles. The quality and performance that Porsche has become known for has caused the public and private industries to consider their

Automotive Industry Most people drive a car every day, some have driven one their whole life, but what do we know of the automotive industry? It will be the goal of this paper to discuss four different environment challenges of the automotive industry. What is the global competitiveness of the auto industry? What new technologies are coming out to push the industry into a newer and newer high-tech world? Do vehicles cause environmental concerns, and what does the government have to say about it? What are the opinions of the consumers about the vehicles they buy? What is the global competitiveness of the auto industry? There are six main manufactures of vehicles today. The six main manufactures are Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, Ford, Honda, GM. The fight is real, in one article the writer says this, “Japanese automakers Toyota (TM) and Honda (HMC) have among the highest margins in the business at 13.8% and 13.1%, respectively. In contrast, General Motors (GM) has a relatively lower margin of 8.5%. Ford (F) has an EBITDA margin of 8.2%.” (Kallstrom) These margins of profit are where there at because of competition. Kallstrom later writes competition makes it difficult to pass the raw material prices onto the customer. Also, with every changing standards on safety and emissions auto industries need to stay up to date to say in the game. What new technologies are in the automotive industry? In Forbes magazine an article was written about the next big advancements in car

The Porsche Automotive Group firm has been considered to be a benchmark of precision within the market for decades. According to Henderson & Reavis (2009), “By 2007, Porsche had become the world’s most financially profitable automaker on an annual per unit basis.” They then go on to mention, “This is especially impressive when considering that Porsche produces over 100,000 vehicles annually.” From Porsche’s inception their focus has been place on the finer points of engineering. Sense the 1930s this firm has been translating their expertise of engineering into the esthetic design of their vehicles. The quality and performance that Porsche has become known for has caused the public and private industries to consider their vehicles to

The SWOT analysis highlighted the following as the main drivers of change for General Motors

Swot analysis is using to review the industry and to build up strategies in order to be more competitive in the industry. Besides, using swot analysis is an easy method to focus on company’s

“Cookie-cutter” in marketing terms means products that are mass-produced; products must look alike and must not have any differences. Driven by the cheapest material and labor available, many car companies have given into building a “cookie-cutter” vehicle that is affordable to the masses than their competitors. Due to this trend, many car companies have lost their sense of uniqueness along the way because all cars produced are so similar. Porsche on the other hand have made it clear that they are a car company that will not fall into this trap of cookie cutter but design beautiful crafted cars to stand out from the rest. Porsche AG (shortened) has proven to be unique and outstanding in their own way from the start ever since Ferdinand Porsche, the founder, started the company in 1931 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Volkswagen AG is one of the largest marketers when it comes to automobiles. The products of the company are available all over the world. However, they are only the third largest automobile marketer in the world, behind Toyota and General Motors. Volkswagen is a major sponsor for several sports such as soccer, the summer Olympics and the winter Olympics. The company is always attempting to be innovative in developing new automobiles that will help customers around the world to have a better, safer and more environment friendly driving experience. (Volkswagen AG, 2015, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Volkswagen) But not only does the company attempt to become more innovative when it comes to their product, the Volkswagen AG is also a great example when it comes to their human resource department. The Volkswagen AG is “known for their innovative approach when it comes to human resource solutions” (Volkswagen AG, 2015, http://costkiller.net/tribune/Tribu-PDF/Volkswagen-Implements-Innovative-HR-Programs-with-mySAP-ERP-Human-Capital-Management.pdf). This innovative approach to human resource management is one reason why the Volkswagen AG has positioned themselves so well in their industry.

Using SWOT analysis, focusing on the strengths and weaknesses that would provide insight of GM’s business operations. To name a few strengths, one of the functional area that could possibly be a core competence would be the firm’s human resource management. For instance, by offering attractive employee benefits that were available to all employees will reduce attrition and increase employee morale. As mentioned in the case, former CEO Wagoner created a health-care trust where the health related costs would be incurred by the firm. Another strengthen was introducing new models of vehicles that would be sure to generate the expected sales and draw consumers by offering affordable prices that could not be passed up. For example, redesign models like Chevrolet Cruze and Cadillac ATS, which increased the profits in most regions of the firm’s operation. Apart from the firm’s strengths, GM faced weaknesses that caused the firm to lose market share in the automobile industry. One of which is the economies of scale, the independent geographical divisions were busy producing their own cars, which in turn made GM’s cars very expensive to build. The lack of collaboration between the divisions pushed GM to price their vehicles at a high dollar value to recover the cost of building the commodity. Even though Wagoner

In recent years, the interest for eco-accommodating cars and electric vehicles has been quickly expanding as environment has turned into a noteworthy sympathy toward numerous administrations and numerous individuals around the globe. As indicated by Rising vitality costs and expanded discharges controls are liable to build the interest for mixture electric vehicles (HEVs), as crossover motors are more fuel proficient and less dirtying than ordinary gas and diesel motors. The essential markets for HEVs will be inside the US, Western Europe, and Japan, in spite of the fact that the quickly developing Chinese business sector is likewise anticipated that would encounter moderately solid interest for these fuel proficient and ecologically agreeable vehicles. Volkswagen is quick to profit by the developing interest for HEVs. The organization has made noteworthy measure of venture for the improvement of half breed vehicles over the years. The organization is dealing with a huge number of new items, with an arrangement running up to 2020; this incorporates fitting spotlight on exchange energizes, cross breeds and electric vehicles. The organization 's accentuation on half and half innovation will empower it to exploit the positive business sector slants in this way boosting incomes and piece of the overall industry (Volkswagen AG , 14 Nov 2014).

A company’s business model is a key factor in affecting a stock’s price especially in a recession. For example, companies that rely on consumer spending are at the mercy of their customer’s budget, which is often reduced in a recession; this translates into less on the bottom line, and therefore affects the business’s stock price. Industries such as the travel industry are heavily affected by economic downturn because consumers can relatively control how much they must travel and how much they go on vacation, and so on and so forth. In a slump, an average family of four may forgo going on vacation to the beach, but still have to buy shampoo to wash their hair. Essential products, sold by corporations, such as toilet paper, toothpaste, laundry detergent, or shampoo are not as affected by recessions because these products are always needed despite the economic climate.