David Montague and his father started the folding bicycles firm, Montague Corporation, in 1988. Thinking about the company’s progress, David was proud of its stable, profitable development in a sector facing cases of insolvency, in addition to incorporation. The company’s sales had increased from 1.5 million US dollars in 1990 to 10.3 million dollars in 1999, and the highest sales, 18.1 million dollars, were attained in 2006.
The international sales are presently around fifty percent of the total. Attributable to the introduction of the earliest portable bicycle, the company gained considerable affirmative media concentration. Because of the augmented social stress on physical fitness, environmental reasons, and traveling, the demand for folding bicycles rose greatly. The majority of competitors dealing in folding bicycles were dedicated dealers akin to Montague.
Even though the sales were mainly to clients particularly searching for folding bicycles, David Montague anticipated that many other customers would be the people that viewed foldability as just an additional, valuable quality. The company operated for about 3 years in collaboration with Natick labs to generate a hybrid folding bicycle for the American Marines; the design necessitated a stealthy, light, and perdurable folding bicycle.
The association that the corporation developed with the military assisted in the development of the bicycles’ reputation as hard-wearing, real bikes, and the promotion from the military connection was marvelous. The corporation initiated a novel, high-end form of bikes that had the SwissBike brand. Apart from the folding bikes, the company started selling associated accessories. On top of a single full-time sales representative, in 2007 the corporation had thirty-two salespersons in the United States that were making efforts to broaden the customer base.
The corporation initiated deals with different companies, particularly in the automobile sector. Though the collaboration with automobile companies had been a stable source of revenue for the corporation from its first deal with BMW, Dahon had entered Montague’s line of operation with Toyota through the establishment of a Dahon-branded bike. Other automobile firms were venturing into the market, for instance, Mercedes-Benz affirmed that it could introduce a small-wheeled folding bike.
The entire development of e-commerce had generated a chance for the corporation to boost online, in addition to phone-order, deals. Contrary to traditional bicycles that necessitated proficient assembly following their consignment, the bicycles produced by the corporation could be transported, set up, and folded with ease. So far, the corporation has made a few online promotions and has not been violent in its endeavors to enhance the status of its site though it is considering boosting operations in the sector.
By 2007, more than half of the company’s proceeds had been generated from outside the United States. The operations of the corporation were carried out in eleven nations, and every nation had an independent salesperson. While Montague was thinking regarding the different prospects, it was not clear about the best means of progress. His initial idea concerned the best thing to do regarding the Montague brand. Regardless of the twenty years of operation, he thought that customer awareness of the brand name did not have the highest precedence. The corporation lacked adequate finances for enormous promotion campaigns; in reality, the promotion in the entire sector was unbelievably low. Could the creation of a stronger brand name by the corporation have given it competitive benefit?