Competitor Analysis Of Harley Davidson

Harley Davidson been in business for over a hundred years. The company operates in several related markets. They sell motorcycles, motorcycle parts and operate a financial component. Additionally the company operates in Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. All Harley-Davidson business segments operate internationally.

Honda has continued to embrace the changes that happen around its operations to ensure sustainability and profitability. The current global motorcycle manufacturing sector is full of competition. It, therefore, becomes crucial for every manufacturer to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses and then identify the opportunities to exploit to gain competitive advantage. Honda is Japanese based automobile company; it has numerous subsidiaries in Asia, Europe, and North America. Due to the advancements in technology, Honda will be required to make use of the latest technological trends to stay competitive. The business level strategy at Honda is in line with its enterprise and corporate strategy. The corporation also conducts Research and

Consumers are not limited to a single market, many of them will be purchasing multiple bikes, but all of them have specific preferences. Successful company will meet customer’s needs and maximize sales by growing the potential market size as well as taking sales from competitors.

Harley-Davidson is well known for its unique motorcycles. Its subsidiary, Harley-Davidson Motor Company (HDMC), manufactures five families of motorcycles, namely, Touring, Dyna, Softail, Sportster and V-Rod. These models are distinguished by their frame, engine, suspension, and other characteristics. The company shipped 233,117 motorcycles in the fiscal year ended December 2011, comprising 39.5% Touring motorcycle units, 39.2% Custom motorcycle units, and 21.3% Sportster motorcycle units.

The fight amongst the major players in this industry is not over price, but over capturing the market share. Since, there is no one definitive leader in the motorcycle industry on the global level, the companies tend to steal each other’s business, this makes the industry rivalry cut throat. One of the crucial factors that make this industry extremely attractive is the constant drive for innovation. Since different industry participants have different approach towards the same segment of the industry, there is a very high

When identifying and analyzing the major driving forces for change in the external environment of the motorcycle industry one must look, and identify these forces; they are the economy, national environmental forces, social, cultural, demographic forces, governmental, political forces, legal forces, and the competitive forces.

Historically, how did Harley‐Davidson manage to dominate the US market? How did it do so and what were its sources of competitive advantage?

The overall intensity of rivalry in the motorcycle industry is strong, key players in this industry include the Harley Davidson, Winnebago, Polaris, Thor, Artic Cat and Marine Products. These top performers hold a high percentage of

In this paper we will perform a complete analysis of the Harley-Davidson Corporation including their corporate and business strategies, strengths and weaknesses, environmental opportunities, the five industry forces, and financial situation. Harley-Davidson has many attributes, which will be apparent in the following analysis. The paper will attempt to define the different components of the analysis and put them all together in a way that seeks to explain the way that they contribute to the overall success of the company and its stakeholders.

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Harley-Davidson has managed to dominate the U.S. market by investing in research and development, experimenting with its designs and

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.

After an investigation by the US International Trade Commission, in 1983 President Reagan imposed a 45% tariff on imported bikes and bikes over 700 cc engine capacity. The new management deliberately exploited the past appeal of their big machines, building motorcycles that purposely adopted the look and feel of their earlier models. Quality increased, technical improvements were made, and buyers returned. Harley-Davidson once again became the sales leader in the heavyweight (over 750 cc) market.

Rivalry Competition: Harley Davidson has a High Rivalry Competition. HD deals with a huge amount of competition in the Motorcycles industry from other motorcycle manufacturers from around the world. These include Honda, Yamaha , Suzuki from Japan; Ducati, Aprilia, BMW and Triumph from Europe; and the Indian as its main rival from the US. The major problem HD faces here is that most of its major competitors are very diversified and have larger financial and marketing resources. For example, Yamaha generates only half of its revenue from motorcycles. The growth rate of this particular industry is forecasted to be 3.4%.

BMW is one of the most widely know luxury class car manufacturers in the world. They have great branding strategy and technology but the entrance of Japanese manufacturers in the U.S. auto market creates a problem for BMW. Japanese companies have luxury cars that are lower in price and maintenance and they have the technology to compete with these German vehicles.