1. Company Background
1.1 Business of the Company:
Ducati Motor Holding S.P.A. is an Italian company that designs and manufactures motorcycles. Headquartered in Bologna, Italy, Ducati is owned by Audi through its Italian subsidiary Lamborghini. In 1926 Antonio Cavaliers Ducati and his three sons, Adriano, Marcello, and Bruno cavaliers Ducati; founded Society Scientific Radio Brevet Ducati in Bologna to produce vacuum tubes, condensers and other radio components. In 1935 they had become successful enough to enable construction of a new factory in the Borg Pan gale area of the city. Production was maintained during World War II, despite the Ducati factory being a repeated target of Allied bombing. Farinelli began developing a small pushrod engine for mounting on bicycles. Barely a month after the official liberation of Italy in 1944, SIATA announced its intention to sell this engine, called the "Cucciolo" (Italian for "puppy," in reference to the distinctive exhaust sound) to the public. The first Cucciolos were available alone, to be mounted on standard bicycles, by the buyer; however, businessmen soon bought the little engines in quantity, and offered complete motorized-bicycle units for sale. In 1950, after more than 200,000 Cucciolos had been sold, in collaboration with SIATA, the Ducati firm finally offered its own Cucciolo-based motorcycle. This first Ducati motorcycle was a 48 cc bike weighing 98 lb. (44 kg) with a top speed of 40 mph (64 km/h) had a 15 mm carburetor
Question 1: Using budget data, how many motors would have to be sold for Waltham Motors Division to breakeven?
How did Ducati become the second most profitable motorcycle maker in the world despite its small scale? What is the fundamental logic of Minoli’s turn around?
The quality of engineering and the safety are other essential points that the marketing plan should include. These parameters are important for both age groups. Having certain extra safety features on the motorcycles can contribute to the need of the younger buyers. Because there funds are low there has to be consideration toward what is affordable. There are possibilities that parents might help to purchase. Within seeing the extra safety features on the car. Quality of engineering is important to the life of the motorcycle. Indeed this will assure the long lifespan and the quality put into all products sold by this organization.
As Motorking Corporation considers introducing its now “gas extender” product into the market, the management must consider various factors to determine if this is a good financial move. The production manager needs to determine if the product will generate a profit for the corporation, how much product is expected to sell to determine how much to produce and how much to outsource.
In the 1900’s there were four Davidson brothers named Arthur, Walter and William and William Harley. Their goal was to create something that could help them travel from place to place in a timely manner. They started working in the back of their home garage, gathering supplies and brainstorming. It took them over three years to come up with a design for a motorcycle. The first carburetor was made from a tomato can, and the spark plugs were the size of a doorknob. By 1903, they had created a bicycle crank which was a bicycle that had one cylinder, motor, attached onto a bicycle. In order to start the motorcycle, one would pedal the bicycle to achieve full compression which would start the engine. Once the engine began running, one would no
Under Florida statutes and cases pertinent to inadvertent disclosure, is Mr. Beene required to return the privileged documents when (1) the products liability team inspected each document included in the discovery; (2) the inadvertent disclosure occurred once; (3) the degree of disclosure was miniscule; (4) timely objections were made at the deposition; and (5) opposing counsel had already built a case around documents that included correspondence that were intended to be privileged?
Ducati has developed and managed their value chain very well. This contributes substantially to their strong position. I’ve already discussed Ducati’s effective management of Inbound Logistics and Operations. Ducati’s Outbound Logistics approach is oriented around brand management in each of its markets. This is accomplished through dedicated, single-franchise dealerships instead of multi-franchise dealerships. This decision means that Ducati seeks a high-value customer experience with lower volumes in lieu of a mass-market approach. This is a strategy that is consistent with being a niche player; it makes sense for the Japanese firms to have multi-franchise dealerships since they are close substitutes of each other.
Doing business in Italy is very different than in the United States. “Set to move onto a slow, but steady, path of economic growth;” Italy, at first glance, seems to be a promising business environment with projected increases in GDP per capita in the coming years, according to Business Monitor International (“Italy Autos Report” 30). However, there are many cultural, administrative, geographic and economic differences that make the business environment much different than that in the US. Generally dominated by domestic carmakers, mainly Fiat S.p.A., the auto industry in Italy doesn’t look very appealing for new firms because of the high barriers to entry. However, foreign carmakers like Ford have managed to penetrate the Italian
Firstly, picking up Ducati as its target company is quite opportunistic. From the traditional investment style’s point of view, TPG is interested in those companies that had grown rapidly but still had the corporate structures of very small companies which caused great stress to the management of the business, and the assets of their target companies always being considered to be divided in order to improve the business riping for LBO. Besides, TPG is expecting to add complexity to the doing the deals and realize fiscal efficiency. Ducati is thus to be an ideal target from these
1. What is the nature of the opportunity? Could the Ducati brand be expanded beyond motorcycles? Why or why not?
Regardless of their emergence in the market in the year, in 1903, Harley-Davidson together with the motorcycle industry did not have an easy start until the end of the Second World War. Many people used motorcycles during the period the war took place. Harley-Davidson was instrumental in supplying around 90,000 motorcycles to the American military during this period. Many veterans opted to buy motorcycles after returning home. This is because they enjoyed riding the motorcycles during the war and desired to continue riding them after the end of the war. This generation was called the "baby boomers" and became the primary target for Harley-Davidson to market their products.
F.At the beginning of the economic miracle, the motorcycle had lost its significance as a means of transport. People had finally come round to the idea of wanting a roof over their heads during their journeys. BMW reacted quickly and surprised the world in 1955 with an unusual vehicle concept. Although it was initially looked upon as something of a curiosity, the BMW Isetta with its one-cylinder motorcycle engine quickly established itself on the market. The economic Motocoupè, based on the Italian Iso construction, became a much-loved top seller in the golden 50s.
| * Only motorcycle company that dominated the World Superbike Championship in years preceding 2003 * Broad range of bikes (dual sport, sport touring, super sport) with leading edge technology * Its development in the U.S. in early 2000’s has supported Ducati steady growth
Before to Ducati’s acquisition by Texas Pacific Group, a deep financial crisis affected Ducati, undermining its production and consequently negatively affecting its market results. Production was less than production capacity and therefore it was clear that a relaunch of the company was necessary. The strategic plan carried out by Ducati Group, with the help of newly appointed Minoli, focused on the idea of increasing the company's value through a growth in turnover volume and protection of product profit margins. One of the most interesting aspects of the changes embraced by the Ducati, is the restructuring of the production system which began in the mid-1990s in order to maintain the product margin and increase the level of sales and turnover.
motorcycle and automobile maker by the mid-20th century, and today it is an internationally respected