Project Idea
The car market has been thriving over the past decade, with a lot of new models appearing every year. The project in question aims at exploring the chances that the car market has to offer and strives to build a strategy for launching a new car into the global market. Furthermore, the opportunities and threats associated with the process will be considered, and a sustainable strategy for carrying out the launching will be designed.
To select the project, the multi-criteria method was chosen. The reasons for the specified decision concerned the large number of extraneous, non-financial factors affecting the process of the project implementation. For instance, the competition levels can be viewed as a substantial factor defining the development of the area. Similarly, industry trends can be referred to the non-financial factors that affect the development of numerous companies operating in the designated environment.
It would be wrong to claim that the financial aspect is unimportant; instead, it should be viewed as the factor bearing relatively the same level of importance as the rest of the issues (Larson & Gray, 2017). Therefore, a combination of the financial and non-financial approaches is recommended. As long as all factors affecting the process of product launching are taken into account, success can be achieved.
Rationale: Why the Project Is Bound to Be Successful
With the recent breakthrough in the areas of business and technology, the growth of the car industry can hardly be a surprise. New opportunities for car design and improvement emerge on a regular basis, and new products are launched surprisingly often. However, the automotive industry market has not been saturated yet, especially as far as the cars for personal transportation are concerned. Therefore, given the high levels of demand in the specified economic environment, one must admit that the project has the chances to succeed (Biswas, Mukherjee, & Roy, 2014).
Furthermore, it should be noted that the product has a rather impressive competitive advantage. Particularly, the improved engine specifications allow for extraordinary maneuverability and steering. Furthermore, the car will include several options; particularly, the customers will be able to choose from three engine options, two transmission options, and two fuel options. Thus, the needs of a larger variety of consumers will be met.
Last but definitely not least, the car will incorporate the option for a 15-minute autopilot without any human-made input (either manual or voice-based one). The rationale behind the proposal is to introduce the product to the target market for a reasonable price to explore the opportunities for attracting a large number of customers and developing a strong competitive advantage (Sah et al., 2014).
Project Objectives: Something to Capitalize on
The current car market does not offer any opportunities for providing customers with autopilot functions in cars. Granted that the concept is currently being developed by Tesla and Toyota (Ingle & Phute, 2017), the specified option is still rather unexplored and new. Furthermore, introducing the elements such as voice control for setting the necessary directions is going to be an unprecedented case in the contemporary automotive industry. Thus, the goals of the project will be based heavily on the identified characteristics of the product. The following objectives will be set:
- Exploring the current car market;
- Determining possible trends in the car market development based on the current phenomena;
- Designing a brand image that will allow representing the car in the target market;
- Developing a branding strategy that will help make the product memorable and attractive;
- Creating a marketing approach that will allow selling the car to the target audience successfully;
- Building a powerful competitive advantage.
Indeed, it is important to make sure that the car will become instantly recognizable among a range of similar products. Furthermore, given the high levels of rivalry in the designated industry, the project may be affected significantly by the actions taken by the corporate giants such as Toyota, Tesla, etc. The corporate strategy, therefore, will have to be based on enhancing innovation and promoting R&D activities to deliver the product of the finest quality. Furthermore, a strong emphasis must be placed on the marketing processes so that the brand should become easily recognizable and very memorable (Babafemi, 2015).
Scope Statement: The Range of Issues to Embrace
The scope of the project can be described in the following way:
- Objective: introducing the car into the global market successfully;
- Deliverables: gaining at least 0.1% of the market share;
- Milestones:
- Competitive advantage developed: July 1;
- Marketing strategy designed: July 15;
- 50% of the expected number of customers attracted: July 31;
- Final assessment: August 31;
- Technical requirements: 2600 mm wheelbase, 1,600 kg kerb weight, 160 bhp, 121 kW;
- Limits and exclusions: the car will be produced in 3 colors;
- Only 13 variations (engines, transmissions, fuel options) will be available.
In the course of implementing the objectives, the life cycle of the project described above as a product will be considered. For instance, the specified stage will be considered as project planning. The design of the appropriate strategies for the future launch into the market will become the project planning stage. To proceed to project execution, one will have to deploy the suggested approaches and actually launch the product into the market (Hussein, Chouman, & Dayekh, 2014). The stage involving the project closure will incorporate the calculation of costs and profits, as well as drawing conclusions regarding the project success (see Fig. 1). Thus, the success of the project will be evaluated.
References
Babafemi, I. D. (2015). Corporate strategy, planning and performance evaluation: A survey of literature. Journal of Management Policies and Practices, 3(1), 43-49.
Biswas, A., Mukherjee, A., & Roy, M. (2014). Leveraging factors for consumers’ car purchase decisions: A study in an emerging economy. Journal of Management Policies and Practices, 2(2), 99-111.
Hussein, B., Chouman, M., & Dayekh, A. (2014). A Project Life Cycle (PLC) Based approach for effective business process reengineering (BPR). Industrial Engineering Letters, 4(6), 1-9.
Ingle, S., & Phute, M. (2017). Tesla autopilot: Semi autonomous driving, an uptick for future autonomy. International Research Journal of Engineering and Technology (IRJET), 3(9), 369-372.
Larson, E. W., & Gray, C. F. (2017). Project management: The managerial process (5th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Sah, M., Asmida, M., Habidin, N. F., Latip, N., Azrin, M., Salleh, M. I. (2014). Supply Chain Management (SCM) practices and continuous innovation (CI) in Malaysian automotive industry. European Journal of Academic Essays, 1(4), 62-67.