Reference no: EM132184084

The strategic goal

The strategic goal is to help Maruti improve its skilled work force which can lead to a three-pronged advancement. What a improved skilled work force will help with are: 1) Improving a old and outdated equipment 2) Improve the lack of innovative design 3) Helps them compete vs the threats listed in the threats box of the SWOT. Maruti already has a lot going for them with a well-established brand name, limited maintenance cost, brand loyal customers and high product quality, that the only thing holding the company back is high skilled employees.

Strategy

Porter’s 5 Forces for understanding the market forces that may affect Maruti’s market: Industry Competition: the car industry nationwide has been at a constant growing pace this has led to more competition. Maruti Suzuki faces major competition from Tata Motors and Hyundai. The unrealized power of potential buyers: getting buyers to switch from 2-wheeler to Maruti Suzuki is quite hard. The number of customers outweighs the product available in market, this decreases the power of customer demands. The power of the suppliers: For an established brand like Maruti, the bargaining capacity of suppliers is low as most of the vendor base has been rationalized to maintain parts quality and consistency. The threat of other car companies: Tata and Chevy are the major competitors of Maruti cars. Most car companies are planning a concept car in this segment to remain competitive as customers are turning away from big gas guzzlers, thus making the threat of substitutes quite high. Threat of new competition: Again, this threat is very high as expenditure and entry cost in this segment is quite low when compared to other car segments. Barriers to market entry are quite low.

SWOT of Maruti Suzuki

Strengths (Internal/Execution): well established brand name, minimal maintenance cost, achieved economies of scale due to high demand and large-scale manufacturing, brand loyal customers and high product quality. Weaknesses (Internal/Execution): lack of skilled manpower, lacking is age of advanced technology and lack of Innovative designs. Opportunities (External/Environment): hybrid vehicles are growing in usage, rise in income level of the population, growing population, growth in the number of female drivers and growth in globalization and thus a raise in exports of cars. Threats (External/Environment): growing market of private taxi providers, rise in fuel prices and scarcity of fuel, foreign competitors like German technology and Japanese technology cars, low cost cars like Tata Nano, and the growth in Public transportation and Metro Railways

Marketing Mix of Maruti Suzuki

Product: Maruti is an established brand in car market segment and has a diversifies range of products. Brand image of Maruti 800 as “People’s Car” and mass-car is very strong. Product design suits the Indian market. Price: pricing policy devised to attract the middle-class segment of society, very affordable, Maruti has used a penetration pricing with most of its products and has a very low profit margin for manufacturers. Place: Hold of Maruti brand across Indian market is quite strong and sales and services are easily accessible to the customers and the distribution channel is very synchronized. Promotion: brand image is very strong, and most people see it as the most cost-effective car.

Maruti’s Role

The company must play on its marketing mix to ensure greater market hold. The role of business leaders in this scenario is to ensure adequate support and resources is provided to various departments so as the business processes can run smoothly, and production can be effective. The leaders must devise the business strategy keeping the interests of the various stakeholders in mind. The main goal is developing or promoting newer and better products and services and by discontinuing those products and services that are less profitable, the company and all the people in it can channel their resources to maximize their returns.

The owner/CEO and strategy director will oversee determining organizational readiness and establishing the planning team and schedule. The tools or techniques to make sure this is ready to be done would be a readiness assessment test. The planning team and executive team would collect and review information to help make and understand the upcoming strategic decisions. The main goal of this is to get from point A the current lack of tech sound employees and designs to point B more tech sound workers developing and designing new cars. To help enhance collaboration and cross-functionality to ensure the success of the plan, Maruti will implement these steps for cross- functionality. Providing greet and learn opportunities, communicating priorities, team huddles, asking for advice, and most importantly celebrating goal wins. Maruti will implement these steps for better collaboration. Making a map of team goals and getting everyone in the same room.

The leadership strategies that Maruti plans to implement throughout the execution of this action plan is VMOSA. “VMOSA is a practical planning process that can be used by any community organization or initiative. This comprehensive planning tool can help your organization by providing a blueprint for moving from dreams to actions to positive outcomes for your community.” (Nagy, Fawcett) Overall with the VMOSA plan and the realistic ideas in place on how to come together as one unit and get to point A to point B as smoothly as possible, I believe the action plan in place has a high chance at being successful. If Maruti keeps everyone involved and in the loop and lets them know everyone has a key place in this plan it will be a smooth transition to a more profitable company.

Using your completed action plan, create a 500-750 word communication plan for disseminating your action plan to all of the stakeholders. Which strategies do you plan to utilize and why? Your plan should demonstrate how you plan to use formal and informal communication channels to implement the plan. In addition, explain how the communication plan addresses what you are hoping to achieve with your strategic goal. What leadership or managerial skills will you draw upon in implementing this plan? Action Plan is provided for you.