Volkswagen: SWOT Analysis Of VW

Volkswagen Group is a German multinational automotive manufacturing company with the headquarter based in Germany. In 2013, Volkswagen was ranked 8 on Fortune’s list of top 100 world’s largest corporations, jumping one spot up from number 9 in 2012. The company specialises in designing, manufacturing and distributing passenger and commercial vehicles, motorcycles, engines as well as offering associated services including financing and leasing. Volkswagen currently operates in approximately 150 countries with 100 production facilities around 27 countries. They have two major joint ventures in China; FAW- Volkswagen and Shanghai Volkswagen (Volkswagen Group, 2014). Volkswagen is committed to Germany as a manufacturing and development location. At the same time, they want to step up their investments in the markets outside Europe to further increase their global presence and capability. The company’s operations in China have grown rapidly in the past decade, becoming its largest market. Volkswagen aimed to be the first successful Western automobile manufacturer to enter China, to build a leading position within the Chinese car market (Volkswagen, n.d).

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

In the following report a description and analysis of the international marketing strategy of BMW will be given. First a description of the company will be given, shortly explaining the history and elaborating on it’s current situation. Secondly an overview of the company’s activities will be provided including: products, brand portfolio, markets and other relevant information. This will lead into a discussion regarding the company’s recent performance. Furthermore a detailed description and analysis of BMW’s i-series’ international marketing activities is given which will explain market segmentation, targeting and positioning, the product strategy, market entry and distribution methods and promotion and pricing strategies. Then

The Volkswagen Group follows a cost leadership and differentiation strategy. The Volkswagen Group achieves low cost leadership by sharing automotive parts amongst its products and as well as sharing vehicle platforms amongst the other 12 brands under the Volkswagen Group, such as Audi, Bentley, Porsche and Volkswagen Passenger Cars. The Group improves product differentiation by focusing on the product quality improvement, innovation and sustainability. This differentiation strategy helps ensure that the customers are satisfied with the products, and that the customers will be willing to pay a premium for the product.

Strengths: 1. Excellent mix of products. 2. Reputation for high quality, and innovation. 3. Global Organization with presence in more than 175 countries. 4. Environmentally friendly image. Prius has performed very well. 5. Lean manufacturing leads to high profits.

brand of the Volkswagen group, which also owned Audi, Bentley, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Porsche, SEAT, and

Volkswagen One of the largest automobile company in the world. Volkswagen is a company from Germany that deals with automobile manufacturing. In the list of top ten best selling cars Volkswagen’s has three cars, those us Volkswagen Golf, Volkswagen Passat and Volkswagen Beetle. The meaning of Volkswagen is ‘People’s car’, which is a German word. Slogan of Volkswagen is “Das Auto”. Ferdinand was funded Volkswagen was founded in 1937 its Headquarter is in Wolfsburg, in country Germany. Martin Winterkorn is the Current chairman of the company. Volkswagen’s revenue 94.7 billion euro in 2011 and also has more than 3658500 employees. Volkswagen is among world’s largest car manufacturer. Others are Toyota, General Motors,

To achieve Volkswagen Group’s goal of becoming number one in customer satisfaction and quality, the company must continue to increase its ecological standards in the manufacturing of its vehicles, which could include specifically, powertrains and lightweight construction. (VW AG) This will help the Group to continue to reduce its global footprint, which will fundamentally be the reduction of carbon emissions. Customer satisfaction is also achieved by Volkswagen Group with its large array of brands that are maintained by the company. From the low cost Skoda and Seat brands to the to the extremely high cost Lamborghini and Bugatti, with the Volkswagen and Audi brands servicing its middle class customers somewhere in between. With brands that span all income levels, Volkswagen Group has become the most successful multibrand automobile manufacturer in the world.

Volkswagen a parent company of Skoda is Europe’s largest carmaker producing cars, trucks and vans. It

There are many multi-national corporations today striving to become economically successful around the world. But some of the MNC companies also focuses on being a great global citizen. As the term states, multi-national corporations stands for companies that work not only in one country but many around the world. While there are various companies that can be focused in this paper, BMW is going to be the main company that will be focused today. The reasons for this selection are the following: one of the most premium carmakers in history and a trust worthy brand that is recognized around the world. However, whether BMW is recognized as one of the good global citizens needs to be questioned due to their positive consequences in America but negative consequences in China and South Africa.

BMW the ultimate driving machine sells the driving experience more than selling a luxury car. The BMW company is the world’s leading provider of premium products and premium services for individual’s mobility. Karl Friedrich Rapp, a well-known Bavarian Engineer who worked with a German aircraft manufacturer, formed his first company in the suburbs of Munich in 1913, couple years later Rapp found that he was dealing with many problems of financial issues, so he decided to resign the company to Franz Popp and Max Friz that’s when they decided that “This brand was going to change from manufacturing airplanes’ engines to motorcycles, then they began working on their first car in 1928. A couple years later the company decided to go international and start building their cars in the United States in South Carolina.” (1) BMW continues to grow with its goals to be the leading luxury and sporty, automotive manufacturing in the world while reaching the objective to show people a different perspective of a new view of their products.

The merger between Daimler and Chrysler was expected to be a success in the economy especially with the current trend and demand in the automotive sector. Daimler is considered one of the most successful and profitable automotive companies across the globe. Founded in 1893 as the Daimler Motor Syndicate Ltd, its growth and expansion in the automotive sector has been facilitated by the need to meet the interests and needs of its key stakeholders (Barnard, 1998). The vehicles that are manufactured by the company are of high standard and the quality is top-notch. Most of its customers are concerned with the satisfaction level that they achieve when they purchase the motor vehicles. The implementation of the luxurious car segment meant that the trend in the economy has considerably changed and there was need for improving the brand image and the superiority of the products offered.

Advancement and globalisation has shrunk the barriers of business and imagination. It has aligned sellers and customers and marketing is playing a strategic and major role as a forceful and appealing command which is continuously adopting changes and advancement in different businesses and different levels of each business (Kim & Ko, 2012). Beer, J. E., Schumacher, T. & Liyanage, J. P. (2012, July) defined that there is a wide range of big and small organisations and companies in the automobile industry that are designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing and selling vehicles. In addition, this industry has a remarkable contribution in economic sector by revenue.

“To be the most respected and successful enterprise, delighting customers with a wide range of products and solutions in the automobile industry with the best people and the best technology".

Volkswagen has set a bold goal of dethroning Toyota as the world’s largest auto maker. This goal includes significantly increasing the North American market share, as Volkswagen currently holds only 2.2 percent of the United States market. Volkswagen’s strategy includes cutting prices and tailoring its cars to better fit the American lifestyle and tastes. This includes increasing the size of its vehicles and modifying certain amenities, such as increasing the cup holder size to fit the larger sized beverages which Americans are known to drink. In order to become the world’s largest auto maker by 2018, Volkswagen’s management team has set a lofty goal of selling 800,000 vehicles per year