Volkswagen

The Volkswagen of America: Managing IT Priorities case study describes the efforts of the US subsidiary of Volkswagen AG (VWAG) – Volkswagen of America (VWoA) – to arrive at a new process for setting IT funding priorities and deciding on what projects to fund. Dr. Uwe Matulovic, the new Chief Information Officer (CIO) of VWoA, has a dilemma in that peers from the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) have been openly hostile and critical of the new prioritization process, particularly in regards to the lack of funding for high priorities for their areas of the company, and have pressurized him “to insert an unfunded project (or two) into the IT department’s work plans” (p. 1). Dr. Matulovic position is particularly challenging as more than 40 projects have been proposed for IT, with funding requirements totaling $240m, when a budget of only $60m has been approved by VWAG.

The development of marketing concept from a Product orientation to a Sales orientation and finally a Marketing orientation has signified an important change in how we understand and conceptualizes marketing in the 21st century. It signified an increased focus in the behavior of consumers and how by applying different marketing strategies organizations have been able to influence the way in which consumers react to their potential needs and how marketers can change their strategy to target different consumers wants. An assessment has been made in this essay looking at the development of the Volkswagen (herein referred to as VW) polo hatchback model.

The increasing numbers of sub-model cars can also affect the brand quality through increasing any risk issues once launched to the public. Furthermore, according to (Stephen, 2004) Mercedes customers have high expectations about the high quality promised by the company. In 2003, the company disappointed many customers when they sold over 2000 vehicles with an extra option for a navigation system, which were not ready to be delivered at the right time, also accompanied by other mechanical issues. On the other hand, the company made an announcement about its new high quality hydraulic breaking system, which increased its competitiveness in terms of safety and quality against other competitors in the industry.

However, due to its unique targeting strategy, it has not win compatible brand recognition among the public. Although Audi enter much earlier than BMW and Benz in the luxury car market, its marketing strategy limited increase of public brand recognition even Audi has over 100 years’ history. Besides, although its styles are highly accepted by the targeting customers, there are a growing number of people who can afford luxury cars for family use in China. Lack of vitality is limit of its further market expansion. On the contrary, its major competitor in China, BMW, has launched a series of marketing strategies to promote its high-performance, manoeuvrability, as well as stylish design to attract young people (BMW, 2009) in order to expand its market share. Therefore, although Audi has achieved success in the targeting market, it may consider further development through diversification in product line and advertising campaign.

As the new CIO of Volkswagen of America (VWoA), Dr. Uwe Matulovic brings an impressive resume that includes ample experience in aligning business process management (BPM), business process re-engineering (BPR) and the insights necessary to create the Business Process Technology Organization (BPTO). As the IT projects within VWoA have lacked governance and are facing a severe budget shortfall of $150M, Dr. Matulovic has a formidable challenge. He must first align all existing IT projects to strategic initiatives, which is the essence of effective IT governance (Huang, Zmud, Price, 2010) and then he must define processes to stabilize these strategies yet ensure integration still occurs at the process and system level (Korac-Kakabadse, Kakabadse, 2001). All of these factors need to be taken into account as VWoA is evaluating up to 22 new models with will have an exponential, nearly chaotic impact on their existing IT systems and their ability to respond. Further, the VWoA business has continued to suffer from a lack of unified focus of IT spending to overall strategic initiatives. This lack of governance has created a process of defining IT priorities more defined by the persuasive ability of managers, their ability to build compelling Return on Investment (ROI) arguments, and

According to the article, “Avoiding the Alignment trap in information technology”, 75% of IT projects fail to deliver the expected functionality, timing and cost. According to survey results, two major patterns lead to failure of IT: alignment and efficiency. Alignment is the degree to which the IT group understands the priorities of the business and expends its resources, pursues projects ad provides information consistent with them. This case recognized the following four IT alignment quadrants that companies fall into as followed:

In accordance with Chan’s (2002) views, there was no structural alignment in the process as the responsibility of managing IT was shared resulting in a tiny business growth. After forming the BPTO and undergoing strategy change, the company came up with roles for IS as a strategic alignment (Chan, 2002) by categorizing them and relating them to business goals. This comparison articulated the priorities of a

DBC: Digital Business Council, this council was created to asses the impact the business side of

The new process that was instituted to prioritize IT projects at Volkswagen of America is very well organized. It takes an IT project and looks at it from multiple aspects, from business to IT. It also allows for several departmental entities to play a more active role in tying in business objectives with stated benefits of the IT project. As stated in Applegate, “IT governance is the effort to devise an overarching and integrated approach, addressing broad themes such as operating performance, strategic control, risk management, and values alignment.” (Applegate, 403) In

Creation, acceleration and emotion are the key components for any automobile industry to deliver its goods to the expected standards. General Motors, popularly known as GM has been a pioneer in the global autoindustry for more than 100 years. Developing from horseless carriages to the latest sports cars, innovations have always excelled at putting the world on wheels. In fact, there are a lot of exciting things to share about the company. GM’s corporation started in 1892 by R.E. Olds, with a solid financial foundation, which enabled him to produce great vehicles for customers and build a bright future for employees, partners and shareholders. GM slowly initiated its staff of experts in the factories which are located in different parts of the globe and acquired the brands like Chevrolet, Pointiac, GMC, Buick, Cadillac(General Motors Corporation, 2015). Leading the way is their tailored leadership team who set high standards for the company so that they can produce the best cars and trucks. This means that GM is committed to deliver vehicles with compelling designs, flawless quality and reliability, leading safety, fuel economy and commercial features. All are intended to create that special bond that can only happen between a driver and a vehicle. General Motors is a customer driven company and aims at earning customers

Arnold Communications undertook extensive market research in order to understand the modern VW buyer and their position in the industry. They set about collecting primary data through extensive interviews, visiting 95 of the top VW dealers and drving VX over 50,000 miles

Electronic business (e-business) can be defined as the use of the internet to network and empower business processes, electronic commerce, organizational communication and collaboration within a company and with its customers, suppliers, and other stakeholders. E-businesses utilise the internet, intranets, extranets and other networks to support their commercial processes (Colin Combe, 2006).

Volkswagen wants to become a global and environmental leader in the automotive world and has developed the “Strategy 2018”. The “Strategy 2018” is stated in their latest annual report in the goals and strategies section as follows:

The automotive industry globally involves the processes of manufacturing as well as sales of cars and other automobiles. The business of this industry is also inclusive of retailing activities like services; sale of spare parts, gas-station retails etc. by the year 2015, and the growth rate of the industry is expected to have a rise of 5.5% (Market Line, 2012). Moreover, as per International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers, this industry is the leading driver in terms of global economic progress and the largest employer. The changing trends and rising demand for technically advanced cars are giving out more opportunities. This essay is going to be a presentation on the analysis of the Volkswagen positioning strategy with respect to the Porters models of competitive strategies. This essay would be vital, as this analysis would help in revealing the company’s competitive and strategic position in the industry.

Porsche has for decades been considered the auto brand most synonymous with exceptional accuracy and precision, the epitome of German engineering. The German auto maker nearly went bankrupt however in 1992 as cost over-runs forced many of the production lines to operate at a loss (Deitz, 1994). The lack of supply chain coordination and management also was creating an exceptionally challenging situation for manufacturing plants, often running out of parts and having to delay and in some cases, cancel orders (Bardy, R. 2010). The culture had become so inward centric and myopic, that it had lost focus on what really mattered, which was driving down the cost to produce automobiles while also creating a culture of continual customer-facing excellence (Book, 1996).