February 1, 2014 Introduction:
Being a motorcycle company that produces high performance, highly successful racing motorcycles, as well as motorcycles for the commercial market, has proven to be a winning strategy for Ducati. This case focuses on Ducati Corse, a subsidiary of Ducati Motor Holding S.p.A. that manages racing teams, bike development, promotions, and sponsorship areas of the company. Ducati Corse is a relatively small organization that encourages cross-departmental integration with its internal teams to achieve the best motorcycle design and racing outcomes as possible. Ducati started racing in the new MotoGP Circuit during the 2003 race season. With unexpected positive racing results, Ducati took the data collected
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Ducati's success was a combination of Ducati engineers' passion for their work, their detailed attention to the design process, and a well-defined, developed method called the “Ducati Method.” The “Ducati Method” helped lead to modular design via extensive use of CAD and simulation technology to optimize the design before physically developing the components followed by intense testing to validate the design.
Question 2: How did Ducati use data?
Processing, interpreting, and using real-time data is a complex task which the Ducati engineers employed with the help of other departments. They utilized rider feedback from the races, videos of each race, track tests, data on race performance, and functional data acquired by on-bike sensors. Ducati used the data from the track to identify problems that could not be detected in simulation. This type of data is excellent for measuring relative performance, evaluating structural stress loads, drivetrain torque, and system temperatures. However, it can be greatly influenced by the driver and environmental conditions. Data of this volume proved difficult to sift through, and additional staffers were hired to tackle it for the 2004 season.
Question 3: What is your assessment of their approach?
We feel that Ducati's approach was ineffective due to the lack of a structured plan with clear priorities. Ducati Corse tried to solve more problems than they were able, which seemed to result in missed
Competition Bikes, Incorporated (Inc.) makes bicycles for professional and other highly accomplished riders who compete in bike races, biathlons, and triathlons. Approximately sixty percent of all race winners have been victorious using bicycles designed by Competitions Bikes, Inc. This extraordinary success rate is a topic of conversation among racers and has led to exponential success for founder Larry Ferguson who formed the company in 2001 in his garage. Competition Bikes is known for quality products and is leader in the market with the CarbonLite
Net Sales – totaled $4,485,000.00 for year 6, and grew +33.3% or $1,495,000.00 between years 6 to 7.
* KTM benefits from two long time players in the industry that attract investors confidence: Knünz and Pierer
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.
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
The earth is 4.6 billion years old, if you scale that to forty-six years we have been here for only 4 hours. Our industrial revolution began 1 minute ago. In that time we have destroyed more than 50% of the world’s forest and used most of our fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are a nonrenewable energy source because it take millions of years to form. We are quickly using up our natural resources and destroying our planet.
Question #1 If you were CEO of Harley-Davidson, how would you compare the advantages and disadvantages of using exports, joint ventures, and foreign subsidiaries as ways of expanding international sales?
There was no single reason why WW1 began, but several factors led to it. Tensions throughout Europe had been growing for many years – nationalism, an arms race, disputes over territories and the division of Europe into two hostile groups were all factors that contributed and helped lead to the beginning of the Great War. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, by Serbian terrorists led to the Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia, July 29th 1914. Around this time, Russia mobilized troops to prevent Serbia being crushed. Germany declared war on Russia and, realizing that France would support Russia, declared war on France as well. I don’t see how declaring war on multiple countries at the same time is logical battle strategy. But they thought what they thought. After Germany invaded the neutral country Belgium, Britain declared war on Germany. Japan, seeing the chance to seize German land located in China, also declared war on Germany. Bulgaria and Turkey sided with the Central Powers and soon most countries in Europe had become involved in the Great War.
There are many ways to analyze the performance of a company, some more popular than others. According to the Barney text the accounting method is the most popular way of measuring a firm's performance (Barney, 2002). Some of the reasons for the popularity could include the fact that accounting measures of performance are publicly available on many firms and they communicate a great deal of information about a firm's operations. Other methods of performance analysis include firm survival and the multiple stakeholder approach.
The first major ingredient of Harley-Davidson’s transformation process was the influx of new capital from AMF. Specifically, this allowed the company to dramatically expand motorcycle production from 15,475 units to 70,000 units in only four years; however, this change also resulted in a significant decrease in overall product quality.
1. What is the nature of the opportunity? Could the Ducati brand be expanded beyond motorcycles? Why or why not?
The invention of automobiles had been dated long back in history. From that day till now, it had not only made our lives easier but also simpler. From times back then till now many big automobile companies had came into existence, some of them were successful and some were not, thus going out of market and competition. Among them, Porsche and Volkswagen Group(VW) have emerged as one of the world leaders in automobile industry. Through years of hardwork and sheer use of technology and engineering developments, both of these companies have carved a name for themselves in their respective markets. But sometimes, bad management and several areas of conflict arise between two companies that can lead to its downfall. In this case too the CEO of Porsche, just wanted to administer each and everything according to his own ways and rules, but on the other hand the CEO of Volkswagen, even after facing huge loses wanted to continue on with his strategy because he was quite confident about his strategy and clearly had a broader outlook of the scenario. Therefore, due to having different mindsets, there was a conflict between the ideas of two which led to the decline of one of them. These conflicts can be summed up in the following couple of questions:
1) The buyer decision process of traditional Porsche customers relies on the motivations that determine these people to select this brand. Their purchasing decision process is based on the exclusivity of the brand that is connected with the car owner. In their opinion, by purchasing a Porsche, traditional customers purchase the exclusivity and luxury associated with the brand. These customers want to purchase a car that reflects their social status and their financial power. In addition to this, they are not interested in the utility of the car, but in the characteristics that differentiate it from utility cars. These traditional buyers are rather interested in their feeling while driving a Porsche in comparison with the size, price, or fuel economy of the car.
Ducati entered into the accessories, apparel business and custom design components giving customers individuality and high performance, respectively.
As for South America, Harley-Davidson Inc. HOG +0.31% opened a permanent Latin America headquarters, joining a growing list of U.S. companies looking to tap into the emerging market. (By Melodie Warner in Market Watch) South America has a growing economy and a huge acceptance for an icon in the motorcycle industry like Harley Davidson. In the same way Japan embraced Harley “Their economy is a fast growing luxury market” p.c11.