In marketing strategy, myriad of companies have adopted the use of product concept whereby additional value and features are added to existing products. In terms of characteristics, quality has been viewed as a competitive marketing strategy in Nissan-Renault alliance.
Besides, quality products have made Renault and Nissan companies to be among three top most automotive groups leading in the market. Their brands have become popular worldwide due to competing quality and reliability.
The commitment to quality service towards sustainable development is driven by responsibility of the two automobile companies to their stakeholders. This essay presents a case study of Nissan and Renault and how they use product concept to achieve synergies.
The alliance between Nissan and Renault has been a unique partnership joined by cross -shareholding and unity to accomplish high performance levels. The two companies have over the years, combined their strengths geared towards developing potential synergies.
The alliance attains this through constructive approach towards achieving better results. It is imperative to note that the growth of this alliance has been through respect to unique brands and corporate identities as well as preserving autonomy of each company.
Research and development (R&D)
Innovative activities as well as research and development (R&D) that the alliance conducts in terms of products to achieve synergies has been a common shared platform for both companies. It is instructive to note that both platforms deal with vehicle parts such as air conditioning, gearboxes and other invisible car parts.
The alliance has used common parts and shared platforms as tools to reduce production and development cost and creates economies of scale.1Besides, in 2008, it managed to sell over 50% of Nissan and Renault through main common platforms such as C platform for Nissan Qashqai and Renault Megane/Scenic, and B platform for Renault Clio and Nissan Versa/Tilda.
Besides common and shared platforms, another area of research has been on powertrains. It is imperative to note that the powertrain of Nissan is gasoline while that of Renault is diesel. As such, the Renault-Nissan alliance deemed it fit to establish common gearboxes and engines such as the V6 diesel engine and the six-speed manual gearbox that would facilitate sharing common powertrains and exchanging powertrains.
The latter has led to creation of Renault products used by Nissan Qashai such as the Renault 1.5-litre diesel engine as well as Nissan product used by Renault Laguna called Nissan 3.5-litre gasoline engine.2
Finally, to expand and advance their technologies, the alliance has embarked on corporate research on strategy and engineering based on dynamic performance, life-on-board, environmental CO2 emission and safety. Concerning the latter, Renault and Nissan have turned their focus to electric vehicles as a strategy on zero-emission technology products.
Product concept
In the market segment, products and services produced by Renault-Nissan alliance have been recognized by consumers in terms of value and quality. The 15% improvement on productivity by Renault Production System (RPS) has borrowed extensively from the production system of Nissan.
As such, the alliance has come up with an Alliance Integrated manufacturing System (AIMS) that has been used by Nissan to assemble Renault’s Trafic, Clio and Sander vehicles in Spain, Mexico and South Africa respectively.3
On the other hand, Renault has produced Nissan’s Livina and almera classic in Brazil and Korea respectively.4 Other products line-ups that the alliance has improved and expanded include Renault’s Koleo advanced and developed by Nissan 4×4 technology, Nissan Primaster/Renault traffic, Nissan Interstar/Renault master and Nissan kubister/Renault kangaroo.
To recap it all, continuous improvement of products and progressive quality of service are some of the product concept marketing strategy tools that Renault-Nissan alliance has used to attract and retain customer loyalty. It is imperative to note that a good market segment relies on the quality of the offering issued by a company.
The alliance has created a well designed customer and market satisfaction platform through innovation as well as research and development on its products.
Bibliography
Renault and Nissan. Alliance facts and figures. Retrieved from <www.renault.com/fr/Lists/…/alliance-fact-and-figures-2009.pdf >
Stanford graduate school of business.The Renault-Nissan alliance in 2008: exploiting the potential of a novel organization form. Retrieved from <hbr.org/renault-nissan-alliance-in-2008-exploiting…/SM166-PDF>.
Footnotes
1 Stanford graduate school of business. The Renault-Nissan alliance in 2008: exploiting the potential of a novel organization form. Retrieved from < hbr.org/…renault-nissan-alliance-in-2008-exploiting…/SM166-PDF>. p. 10
2 Ibid p.12
3 Ibid p. 20
4 Renault and Nissan. Alliance facts and figures. Retrieved from <www.renault.com/fr/Lists/…/alliance-fact-and-figures-2009.pdf > p. 12