Automobile Industry: Marketing Analysis. Business & Marketing Essay

Automobile Industry: Marketing Analysis
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Automobile Industry: Marketing Analysis
Introduction
The inception and dominance of the processes of liberalization, privatization, and globalization in marketing across all industrial sectors have increased the demand for goods and services. Liu and Shankar (2015) explain that the global landscape has witnessed great advancements in customer-driven marketing initiatives where all industrial operators have institutionalized the mechanisms needed to foster the attraction of new customer segments while retaining the existing ones. Shao, Taisch, and Ortega-Mier (2016) explain that the automobile industry has experienced massive developments since 2000. Such a notion could be attributed to the fact that the yearly transportation expenditures in developed economies such as the United States are ranked second after the cost of housing. Eilert e al. (2017) reveal that the global automobile industry has increased its levels of competitiveness by ensuring that it avails is customers with high-quality goods at minimized costs. According to Shalender and Singh (2017), competition in the automobile industry exists in two distinct levels: inter-brand and intra- brand competition. Cherubini, Iasevoli, and Michelini (2017) reveal that inter-brand competition is the kind of rivalry that exists between varied manufacturing firms availing their customer segments with differentiated commodities with the aim of satisfying different consumer preferences. For instance, intra- brand competition could exist among automobile organizations such as Toyota, Ford, Chevrolet, and Honda. On the other hand, intra- brand competition is witnessed among firms offering a similar brand and emphasizes the issues of pricing.
The automobile industry is characterized with higher degrees of operational dynamism that are manifested with issues such as variation in the patterns of demand, periodic fluctuation in the prices of fuel and declination in the levels of brand quality. The challenges above play a crucial role in raising the stakes for firms struggling to catch up with the disruptions presented by the business environment. As a consequence, Shahin and Mohammadi Shahiverdi (2015) explain that automobile firms across the globe can only increase their competitive advantages through the proper adoption of effective marketing ideologies. For instance, Choi and Lee (2018) reveal that the success of automobile manufacturers such as Tata Namo and Toyota can be attributed to the inherent capabilities of these companies to institutionalize effective marketing flexibilities. The current study is divided into three distinct sections. First, the study proceeds by describing the scope of the automobile industry, recent performances, SWOT analysis, the marketing-related lessons presented by the automobile sector, and the marketing recommendations concerning the strategies that need to be applied for the industry to realize the desired levels of success. The second part of the study shall undertake a critical analysis of the 2017 sales and profit performances of Toyota, the specific examples of the market segments served by the organization, its marketing mix strategy, the differential strengths and weaknesses of ...