June 24 - DQ's

Generic Strategy

A brand is a nest of perceptions. Those perceptions are shaped by the messages any one person receives about a brand. To position your brand, you need to determine what messages you want people to use to perceive and advocate about your brand. To figure out our positioning strategy, we need to first determine who our stakeholders are; they aren't only our customers. They are our vendors who give us credit terms and products or services, they are our financiers, investors, potential investors, employees and potential employees, and they can be policy makers, the media and numerous other groups.

We have focussed more on production, re-tooling costs and capacity decisions by comparing to the previous sales (results) on individual class vehicles by making minor changes in all class vehicles under product development by collecting and comparing the data of competitors vehicle attributes.

We had decided to increase the plant capacity and invest in technology incrementally.

· Invest on test markets, focus groups for all the vehicles to see where we stand in the competition.

· Invest on corporate advertising , social media, and direct marketing for all the vehicles.

· Finances - Increase the dividends pay and purchase 1 year CD @ 4% (million USD)

Strategic Action Plan

As we have launched Cutility vehicle with an advertising campaign of 50 million, the action plan was to focus more on production and capacity decisions because the existing vehicles inventory was a little higher than expected with the previous decision results and we have not increased the plant capacity as well with four vehicles already in the firm. The re-tooling costs were also high for the previous decision results as well. So, considering all the factors the strategy is to limit the scheduled production for family, mini-van and luxury vehicles and compensate the scheduled production for AEV and Utility vehicles. The strategy worked for the firm, the current results for decision had left with zero inventories and very less re-tooling costs compared to previous periods.

Product Development and Marketing

Bringing a product to market is like navigating a maze, with twists and turns and lots of dead ends. Having a guide that’s found their way out of the maze means we can run full speed ahead and avoid the hang-ups (Morris & Honeycutt, 2018). In the event that we can’t find a single person that’s done something 95% similar, we can still build a team of problem solvers that have individually dealt with the specific challenges of the design and, with good leadership, bring together a holistic solution.

Once we know who our stakeholders are determine if our messaging will be the same or different to each stakeholder group and how we can communicate with those groups. Do a SWOT analysis, determine communications issues and opportunities, then build a strategy to get our messages across. That's how we develop a market positioning strategy. Our market knowledge, research and intuition are the tools that we need.

AEV – As per the industry news Green Vehicle Incentives, the new tax credit for AEVs has passed. Firm decided to invest more on promotion, direct marketing and invest on minor changes for the AEV. Increased the MSRP of the AEV because the firm was confident about the increase in number of sales hugely compared to other existing vehicles in the firm. As the firm expected, the results were positive, and the sales were higher than the competitor AEV.

Test report for AEV

Manufacturing

Another approach is to drastically cut the design requirements. It’s easy to pile on features while brainstorming, but once we enter the development stage we might need to trim the fat. Each feature and accessory we cut will save on time to market. Lastly, and this is somewhat related to the previous point, is to focus on the features that are TRULY innovative and not feel like every aspect of the product has to be groundbreaking (Mathur & Kenyon, 2019). We should not be afraid if the UI or some of the physical details look similar to existing products on the market. Making something that’s 100% unique is almost impossible and eats a lot of valuable time being different for the sake of being different. It’s ok to be similar in minor ways, as long as the core innovations are well executed and marketed.

The firm results from the previous decisions ended up with excess inventory. So, for this week firm decided to not increase the number of the scheduled production alot but increase the estimated plant capacity. For cafav, camini , and climax firm decided to increase a bit for the scheduled production and increase in good amount of number for AEV and Cutility because the AEV has demand in the market and for cutility because its new in the market.

Result for inventory analysis

Finance

Being heavily funded certainly helps. Few things are as detrimental to the development of a product as running out of cash and having to put the entire thing on hold. Of course, having lots of money is only an indirect solution. Eventually we have to spend it, so the question is where? We intend to bring someone onboard the team with experience in exactly the issue we are trying to solve.

Plan Ahead

Our automobile will evolve as well as the business agreements to obtain mobility. Unlimited miles on a monthly subscription is the trend echoed from many cell phone plans with unlimited gigs of data. To accomplish unlimited miles the energy waste in the current configuration will drastically be reduced (White & Botten, 2019). The old automobile industry will migrate to the upscale niche all fighting for the same 10% of the market and the low end will be taken over by startups offering half price dual mode EVs that are legal to drive three times faster. (180 mph on elevated safe guide way) Our dealerships will serve that top 10% niche and we will get our new car online in a few clicks. Auto insurance and finance will merge back into the vehicle makers.

Relations to coursework and lessons learned

The auto manufacturers want less regulation and loosened MPG requirements. Environmentalists and the environment want to eliminate petroleum for a fuel. The question becomes whether governments start limiting car usage because of the environment. It is possible that cars will be illegal or taxed so heavily that only the rich can afford one. The havoc that will wreak is tremendous. The one thing we can be fairly certain of is in the next 30 years, it will look a lot different than today. Having a well-defined mission, vision, and strategy provides a feeling of direction when making important strategic decisions is crucial in strategic planning besides competing differently from rivals (Thompson et al., 2020, p. 4).

Collaboration with teammates and work log

We intend to set up a buddy system between on our team - this can both be for work responsibilities but will also include non-work related coverage - so long as we do it on an equitable quid pro quo basis. We will have different roles (different hats) within the team which might rotate every quarter - to improve teamwork – We have had success with setting up 7 roles as follows and having everyone have a chance to play every single role - it really helps individuals understand what it takes to keep a team functioning - and stops it being all placed on one person.

Specific work log or meeting times is shown below:

06/08/2021 3:15 pm PST and 06/12/2021 1:30 pm PST

References

McManus, White & Botten, N. (2019). Managing global business strategies: A twenty-first-century perspective. Elsevier.

Mathur, S. S., Mathur, S., & Kenyon, A. (2019). Creating value: Successful business strategies. Routledge.

Morris & Honeycutt, E. D. (2018). Business-to-business marketing: A strategic approach. SAGE.

Thompson, A., Peteraf, M., Gamble, J., & Strickland, A. J. (2020). Crafting & Executing Strategy: Concepts and Cases (22nd ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. 4