Executive Summary
The motor vehicle market is a flooded one; each and every day, a new player enters into the market, and this makes the already murky situation a lot more competitive. For a brand new device manufactured by a company known for, underperformance, a combination of several marketing strategies should be implemented to get the required effect in the shortest possible time. The book calls for proper market research with the aim of identifying what each player fails to do. After determining this, all the efforts are made to improve on strategies and develop several competitive advantages for the former market players (Albert 2006).
Fiat 500 is a brand that is introduced by an Australian company that is venturing into this market for the first time. After carrying out market research, it was determined that the market needed a car that would offer the user easy operational navigation, offer the strength of a sports car yet the class and comfort of a limo. The Fiat 500 model, therefore, boasts providing these two and low fuel consumption, thus dispelling the notion that all race cars are fuel guzzlers. This is in addition to other several multimedia provisions that are aimed at offering the occupants quality entertainment providing the feeling of real value for money (Jeffery 2001).
The strategy that the car intends to use to win a larger proportion of the market is to position itself as a leader in quality. To achieve this, there are only two strategies, either to offer cheaper price or to enhance the quality. Cars are gadgets to which people attach a feeling of dignity and pride. Introduction of one at a low price would lead to questions on the quality of the product, and, therefore, Fiat 500 offers relatively competitive prices while assuring its users of the quality through a provision of a twelve months or sixty thousand kilometres premium warranty.
SWOT and issue analysis
With its introduction, it is predicted a good early performance of the supercar. This is major because it targets at a specific segment of the market that for a long time has been left unattended to by other market players who have played in the market before. The car offers dual usage, for lovers of sports this would be the car of choice, with durability comparable to no other in the market and the strength of a stallion. It has the power to go over rugged terrain and still stay in good condition. Therefore this car is ideal for races. Despite this strength, the car comes in a sleek soft finish and a convertible cover back that makes it ideal for a family outing. This is further enhanced by the increased number of seats, the car is a double door, but on the inside, the space can be increased by rolling up the additional two seats to occupy the space that was initially the trunk. (Jeffery 2001).
Its fuel consumption becomes yet another competitive advantage. Unlike other cars in its category, the Fiat 500 runs on unleaded petrol which it still consumes very economically. A liter of this cheap brand of petrol, that is also very environmentally friendly, is adequate to power the car for an approximated thirty five kilometers. This is because of the fact that the car is a single engine but a promise of a dual engine for the lovers of dual engine being introduced later in the year. This would make the car receive appreciation from the low and middle class section of the market which coincidentally forms the larger proportion of the market. Those who are environmental conscious would also favor the car purposely because the car does not pollute the environment. This contributes to the fact that the car is very timely as this is time that more and more activism is picking pace gunning for lesser and lesser production of the green house gases.
The price of the car is most likely to be a competitive strength; it is a little less expensive than any other super cars with similar features in the market. This will attract the low and middle class segment of the market which, as a matter of fact, forms a bigger percentage of the market.
The performance of the car model can, however, be negatively affected by some of its weaknesses which include the lack of information about the brand and its image. Currently, not so many people know of the presence of Fiat 500 in the market and the advantages it offers, and this greatly hampers its sales. Furthermore, the fact that the car has a metallic housing means that it is a little heavier than any other car in its category (Tony 2012). A segment of the market that does not fancy the weight may not appreciate the product.
One of the opportunities that the model aims to exploit is that there has been an increased demand for sports cars. It introduces a twist to the numerous range of sports cars in the market that one can easily convert from a the strong racing mode car to the highly comfortable family car that can be used to several other uses without one feeling ill placed. The high demand thus means that the car is a very timely entrant into the market, so if the marketing procedures should go as planned, then the sales will boom. Besides, the car also assures of cost effectiveness; it deals with the need for one to have some additional entertainment gadgets such as an IPod while on a drive, and a user gets service for his/her money (Stefan, Christopher & Jochen 2008 ).
The performance of the product in the market faces a number of threats, and these include intense competition from other products with superior qualities, Volvo and volks wagen continue to introduce newer brands too and this is a big source of threat to the performance of these cars. With the competition, there comes the need to keep lowering prices, and this could make the company run into loses. Finally, the product has a compressed life cycle, and this can lead to a shift of customers within a short period of the brand’s presence in the market (Tony 2012).
Learning reflection
At the onset of the project, hopes were high that one would learn the tricks used in the market to position a brand. This goal was met when the group determined the ways of identifying the opportunities and the strengths that the product had and how to overcome them. The greatest problem encountered in the process of developing the project was the lack of resources, most specifically, books and journals on the manufacture and sale of motor vehicles. However, these were overcome with visits to some of the manufacturing firms where information was offered voluntarily. One can easily say that the environment is not as messy as anticipated, and a new product is still doing well capturing the attention of the target market. Studying in groups has a key importance in the life of a student as it improves the interpersonal skills of the group members (Richard 2003).
Reference List
Albert, N 2006, Creating a winning E-Business, Cengage, New York.
Bracey, B & Culver, T 2009, Harnessing the Power of Cell Phone Technology for Education: A Multi Stakeholder Approach, University of Washington, Washington.
Jeffery, F. B 2001, Introduction to Business Law, Boston University Press, Boston.
Richard, B 2003, Vocational business training, developing and motivating people, McGraw-Hill, NewYork.
Stefan, L, Christopher, W & Jochen, S 2008, Designing E-Business systems markets, services and networks. 7th workshop on E-business, Springer, Paris.
Tony, D 2012, Mouse that roared: The classic hatch now has a gusty engine with added greenness, The Australian Financial review, Sydney.