Harley Davidson

Harley-Davidson, Inc. (www.harley-davidson.com) is a comprehensive strategic management case that includes the company’s calendar December 31, 2008 financial statements, competitor information and more. The case time setting is the year 2009. Sufficient internal and external data are provided to enable students to evaluate current strategies and recommend a three-year strategic plan for the company. Headquartered in Milwaukee, WI, Harley-Davidson, Inc. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under ticker symbol HOG.

Porters Generic Competitive Strategies: The relative position of a company within its industry concludes whether the profitability of the firm is above or below the industry’s average. The above average profitability of the firm is fundamentally showing the sustainable competitive advantage in its long run. According to Michael Porter, competitive advantages originate from the value of a firm and there are two types of competitive advantages, which a company can own. These are low cost or differentiation. For any company, in

Strategic planning involves a variety of considerations and possible solutions, which need to be examined. Making strategic decisions becomes easier if the alternatives are classified into various categories. In the paper written by Nataraajan, Boulton and Balakrishnan (2000), they develop and provide a systematic approach for strategic decision makers in an organization, which they call the Alternative Classification Scheme. The process includes grouping alternatives into a spectrum of completely constrained alternatives to completely unconstrained alternatives, which are ranked. Step 1 is to specify the issue(s) of interest. Step 2 is to identify salient constraints (a maximum of 7). Increasing the number of constraints reduces the number of alternatives. Step 3 is to prioritize constraints. Finally, Step 4 is to classify alternatives by constraints. When these alternatives are laid out next to each other, it is to see the

In 1985 Michael Porter surmised that a market can be subjected into different strategies, thus, three variations of competitive advantage were born. The differentiation strategy is the focus for the purpose of this paper. Furthermore, the differentiation strategy in its most exposed form is a strategy that places prominence toward the brand name and advantage is the prestige that follows. This type of angle draws in a specific high-end consumers which in turn sets its corner of the market apart from its competition. Additionally, in this advantage there is a uniqueness perceived by the consumer, industry wide. The differentiation strategy is distinct in attributes indescribable by price but all the same customers are more than willing to pay a premium for the product or service. Firms that are successful in this advantage are fully equipped with a product development team high in creativity and innovation. Additionally, this strategy is only able to be an advantage if a firm is able to access an unlimited amount of research.

Generic strategies were used initially in the early 1980s, and seem to be even more popular today. They outline the three main strategic options open to organization that wish to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage. Each of the three

Even if you have the most exciting idea ever, it is often difficult to enter a new market or industry and compete directly with established incumbents. You have certainly noticed how I have repeated Michael Porter’s three basic competitive strategies in every chapter. Implementing, cost leadership, differentiation, and strategic focus alone, or a blend of these three things can help any business increase its competitive advantage. For this reason I will dedicate the next few paragraphs to these three concepts.

The Harley-Davidson Motor Company was formed in 1903 by William S. Harley and the Davidson brothers (Walter and Arthur). The company started out slowly but once word got round that the Harley-Davidson was a reliable piece of machinery, more orders flowed in. Early on Harleys were exported to other countries. During World War I (1917-1918), Harley-Davidson produced 20,000 military motorcycles to serve the U.S. Allied forces. Again during World War II (1941-1945), Harley-Davidson produced more than 90,000 motorcycles for the Allied forces. The company had always been family owned but in 1965, with company profits down and a shortage of money,

To attain competitive gain, organisations can differentiate their merchandise and services from their competitors they can also choose to lower their costs in order to compete with other contenders. By aiming their produces to a wide-ranging target, they are essentially covering most of the marketplace or if they choose, they can decide to concentrate on a narrower target within the market (Lynch 2003). While doing so may reduce their market range it essentially reduces their other competitors. Porter stated that there are three generic strategies that an organisation can follow to achieve competitive gain over other organisations. These are:

Harley-Davidson is an American motorcycle manufacturer with a rich history and cultural tradition. It was founded in 1903 in Milwaukee, WI. Around mid-1980’s, the company was facing problems with product quality and enlarged global presence, hence the management realized the need for an integrated management system that will not only improve the company’s processes but also fit within its budget and enhance its profits. This caused the start of the process to identify the most appropriate information management system for Harley Davidson Motor Company.

According to Porter (1985), strategies allow organizations to gain competitive advantage from three different bases: cost leadership, differentiation, and focus and calls these bases the generic strategies.

It is also known as what firm has to gain over its rivals. This arises from the use of generic strategy that best fits into the organizations competitive environment. The key drivers of competitive advantage is the cost leadership and differentiation product. Competitive strategy is the means by which the organization seek to achieve and sustain competitive advantage. Porters identified the four strategies to achieve competitive advantage.

Competitive advantages are created in several forms; differentiation, low costs or both. Differentiation refers to products or services with a perceived higher quality, fewer risks and outperforms competitor products. Differentiation strategies include cost leadership, customer experience,

Chapter Five describes the five basic competitive strategy options – which of the five to employ is a company’s first and foremost choice in crafting overall strategy and beginning its quest for competitive advantage.

Cost Leadership includes an organization that has the capacity create and offer its items and administrations at a much lower expense than its rivals. This empowers a minimal effort pioneer to acquire above normal benefits. Cost initiative is not a reasonable technique for most organizations, particularly little to fair sized organizations. This is on the grounds that it obliges a high speculation to accomplish economies of scale.

Porter’s generic strategies describe how a company attains competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three generic strategies-cost leadership, differentiation and