Business Strategy – 2000 words

Business Strategy

            Abstract

For any organization, it has been observed that marketing is the basic and the most important strategy that can help in gaining desired success. The main goal for any business is to gain more customers as this strategy can help the organization have improved sales in the market, thus increasing the market shares.

Introduction

Marketing for an organisation

It has been argued by Bradley, (2005) that marketing is referred to as the sum of strategies used to increase the sales of the products that are manufactured by any manufacturing organization. Marketing has been referred to as the sum of the managerial processes, that can help an organisation gain what is needed. The main items that are exchanged with the customers are products and valued items that have been manufactured by the organization, or services provided. By the help of stronger strategies for marketing, it has been seen that strong customer relationships are built.

Objectives

There are many advantages associated with the strategy of marketing; however, it has been observed that the main advantage is an increased market share in domestic as well as international markets. Ranchhod, Gauzente, and Tinson, (2004) reported that an increased number of customers can help in an increase in the sales volume in the market. This helps in increasing the sales volume in the domestic and international market along with market share in the international market.

Marketing orientation refers to the attitudes and the perceptions that an organization has in accordance to the products that are manufactured by an organization as Solomon, (2003), has argued it. These perceptions are related to the demands of the customers and the end users. In this regard, product innovation is the strategy that helps the organization in using all the skills with the risks involved in introducing a newer product in the market for its customers. In order to create market of the products for the end users as well as the consumers, one of the main strategies is that the demands of the customers are kept in mind and that these demands are shaped up into rather newer, yet stylish products that attract more customers thereby increasing market share and increasing the sales volume. Marketing is essentially customer and market led. The importance of marketing will now be discussed using the example of the Aston Martin sports car manufacturers based in Britain.

Strategy 

Marketing strategies at Aston Martin

It has been argued by Neal, Quester, and Pettigrew, (2007) that Aston Martin is a well-known manufacturer of the luxury sports cars in Britain based in Warwickshire. The name of the company was derived from the founder’s name: Lionel Martin. Between 1994 and 2007, the company was owned by Ford Motors,but it was bought and owned after 2007 by another joint venture company.

Senior management at Aston Martin realized the critical fact that maintaining a reputation of being the most exclusive car brand is a tough job. Moreover, many other factors play their roles in increasing the sales figures, such as customer response and the economic situation internationally.

Challenges

The main challenges that are being faced include the designing of strategies that can increase sales. Thereby, the strategies that are utilized and implemented include the marketing, and sales of the best hand-assembled cars which are produced and used by valued customers.

Edwards, (2009) reports that in 2008, Aston Martin was regarded as the most famous brand in the UK as compared to the other brands. The competitors in the same list included iphone. This rating was maintained for the third consecutive year.

Successful marketing strategies

In this case, one of the recent marketing strategies is the linking of the sports cars with famous film icons such as James Bond and this has increased the popularity of the Aston Martin cars in the UK market as well as in the international market. The effect of this linkage has been so strong that the world’s most famous sports cars as Ferrari and Lamborghini stand at 13th and the 20th positions respectively.

One fairly recent movie in which the Aston Martin was used was Die Another Day. In this movie, Pearce Brosnan drove the V12 Vanquish and this increased the popularity of the sports car to customers. This is the marketing strategy that has been used effectively by the marketing researchers of the company, and it has been observed that the profits generated by the company have almost doubled, and the market shares along with the sales volume of the company have shown a substantial increase too. The use of the V12 Vanquish has had a great impact and its appearance in the James bond movie has led to an increase in sales to 5000 as compared with the annual car sales of 1500 that has been previously recorded. Another recent movie in which Aston Martins have been used is Casino Royale. One of the other Aston Martin cars that has been driven in the Bond movies is DB5 registered BMT 216A. Aston Martin and James Bond films has had a long history together, and their relationship continues to this day.

Marketing and innovation

It has been observed by Dowsey, (2007) that in the case of Aston Martin, the revenues that have been generated by the company are used in the innovative use of technology in the creation of newer, stylish and ever more advanced sports cars.  The marketing researchers in the company realise that customers these days demand stylish and technologically advanced sports cars. The increasing demand for sports cars helps the company gain more customers. Some of the main changes that have been implemented in the products include up to date technology and an innovative design in the latest sports cars. The distribution process has been kept up to date too.

The departure of Aston Martin from racing had been one of the main cases that made the Aston Martin return to the racetracks by thinking and pondering over a strategy that can help the company revive its racing presence. Thereby the strategy of the usage of the Bond movies has been very profitable.

Hill, (2007) reports that there is an addition of robots to the worker line that assemble the car. This strategy helps in increasing the efficiency of sports car manufacturing. The duties that are performed by trobots include the addition of adhesives to the cars during the manufacturing process.  Painting of the car has been made more consistent and perfect because of the addition of the robots; however, still there are some cases in which adhesives are applied manually.

Luxury sports cars

The sector in which Aston Martin has increased the stakes is the luxury sports cars. The bonded aluminium frame is the technical specification that has been used in the Aston Martin sports cars that have been produced recently, and this has caused an increase in overall customer ratio in the market along with the sales ratio. In addition to this, an important strategy that has been used is the production of the vehicle that is not only stylish but also lightweight.

Moreover, Pritchard (2007) reports that it is realized by Aston Martin that they have strong profiled competitors in the international markets, and these include Toyota, Ferrari and Lamborghini. In order to increase the relative market share in the domestic and international markets, these are some of the strategies being implemented. In case of Toyota, by the managers in Aston Martin, it has been observed that the perfect car design has been created quite innovatively.

Custom made cars

Another marketing strategy that has been used by Aston Martin is related to the innovation in the cars that are presented to the customers where the designs are in accordance to the customer demands thereby manufacturing the custom-made cars.

Fuel efficient cars

One of the main customer demands include cars that are more fuel-efficient. The fuel-efficient lists of cars include the hybrid cars including the cars that use ethanol, or water as fuel. The competitor in this case is Toyota as Toyota Prius has been the best fuel-efficient car. However, it would not be true to say that Aston Martin or any sports car company are really and seriously competing in the ‘green’ car market, though like every other company they may well be getting on the ‘green bandwagon’ for marketing reasons.

Environment friendly vehicles

It has been realized that diesel burning has caused an increase in the CO2 in the environment causing serious harm as global warming. Thereby at Aston Martin, there is a class of cars that emit less CO2  in the atmosphere. Thus these cars are supposedly more environment friendly. These characteristics are based on the demands of the customers, which are in turn based on the recent environment protection awareness that has increased in customers.

These days, these customer concerns have been realized by organizations including Aston Martin and other car manufacturers. This strategy helps in gaining trust of  customers, so “green” products are being manufactured to meet customer demand and opinion, however misguided, as these products make sure that these products are ‘environment friendly’.

It has been argued by Dowsey (2007) that Aston Martin realizes that the awareness of its customers is increasing on a daily basis and these demands are based on their concerns in relation to the safety of the environment. These demands are the ones that have to be kept in mind as these concern the customers as well as the end users. These demands and the concerns are shaped up into newer products and these are marketed in order to increase the number of customers and build trust.

 

Recommendations

Recently it has been reported that the latest Aston Martin Cygnus, which is being referred as the ‘greenest’ of all the Aston Martin cars, is being produced by using the innovative ideas of Toyota. Aston Martin, with all its creatively risk-taking and talented staff, arguably has better innovation skills than other car manufacturers. Green and the environmentally friendly car manufacture has been taken on at the Aston martin.

The luxury cars produced by Aston Martin need to be innovatively created in such a way that the environment friendly concerns of the customers are taken into account, no matter how hypocritical they may be.

Other than the Bond movies there are other marketing strategies required by Aston Martin to ensure that the impact of these strategies is greater than the impact that results from the Bond movies strategy alone. The ‘green’ strategy is one such strategy.

Conclusion

Marketing is a highly important concern of any organisation, as it is a fact that the main aim of any business organization is an increase in  customers and end users, as this causes an increase in the sales volume as well as the marketing share. There is no point is making product if it cannot be sold, after all. Concerns of customers are thus always to be kept in mind while designing new products, and this can help in gaining the trust of the customers as well.

 

 

 

References

Bradley, Frank. (2005). International marketing strategy. Edition   5. Financial Times/Prentice Hall.

Dowsey, David. (2007). Aston Martin: Power, Beauty and Soul. Images Publishing.

Edwards, Robert. (2009). Aston Martin: Ever the Thoroughbred, Haynes Classic Makes Series. Edition 3, Haynes Publishing.

Hill, C. Randal. (2007). Aston Martin, Fast Cars Series, Blazers: Fast Cars. Capstone Press.

Neal, Cathy., Quester, Genevieve, Pascale., and Pettigrew, Simone. (2007). Consumer behaviour: implications for marketing strategy. Edition 5. McGraw-Hill.

Pritchard, Anthony. (2007).  Aston Martin: A Racing History. Haynes Publishing.

Ranchhod, Ashok., Gauzente, Claire., and Tinson, Julie. (2004). Marketing strategies: a twenty-first century approach. FT/Prentice Hall.

Solomon, R. Michael. (2003). Conquering consumerspace: marketing strategies for a branded world. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn.