preview

The Honda Effect Case Study

Good Essays

Introduction Honda is a Japan based company and is the world’s largest manufacturer of motorcycles as well as the world’s manufacturer of motor vehicles, producing more than 14 million internal motor vehicles each year. The Honda Motor Company was founded by Soichiro Honda in 1948. In 1959, he opened the American Honda Motor Company, so he could fulfil his dream of building a high performance motorcycle and marketing it globally. The discussion below briefly emphasises on the strategy used by Honda to gain entry into the US motorcycle market. The key differences between the two accounts of Honda’s entry into the US motorcycle market The two accounts of how Honda entered into US motorcycle market differ in numerous ways. There are …show more content…

According to Andrew’s model, there are two stages to corporate strategy, formulation and implementation. Formulation involved looking at the market, competitors and resources and formulating a corporate strategy which would be implemented throughout each process of the organisational structure. This is how BCG viewed Honda, as a corporation, who had looked at the market, formulated a strategy to cope with the environment and pressure of competing in the market and implemented it. Overall, this would make all Honda’s plans and activities deliberate. Pascale (1996) however, viewed Honda as having an emergent approach. This approach shows a realised strategy made up from an intended strategy, together with an emergent strategy, which is not planned but emerges in relations to activities within the environment. Pascale (1996) seemed to think that in Honda’s case, the company’s strategy was emergent and less was actually an intended strategy. By analysing both accounts, it is evident to state that Honda did not just follow one specific strategy, but rather followed a combination of both deliberate and emergent strategies together. Key lessons to be learned from any comparison of the two quite different accounts of the same strategic

Get Access