What Do Toyota Motors, Ford Motors, and All Other Key Players in Automotive Industry Have in Common - Case Study Example

What Do Toyota Motors, Ford Motors, and All Other Key Players in Automotive Industry Have in Common? Introduction What do Toyota Motors, Ford Motors and all other key players in automotive industry have in common? In the same way, what do Dell, Apple, Sony, Toshiba and other top producers of consumer products involving advancement in communication and information technology have in common? These companies dwell enough on creating strategies in order to be on top. They try to dwell on the three generic competitive strategies: overall cost leadership, differentiation and focus (Porter, 1998). By trying to focus on these three generic strategies, a certain firm is actually creating the edge of its competitive advantage. Toyota Motors for instance is focusing on its quality over a long period of time, but such could not be implemented enough without the need for a certain competitive strategy. In fact, it is always part of the firm’s growth to actually evaluate its current status. In doing so, the firm will be able to determine where it would like heading at a specified time and what it would like to obtain by then. From this, the company will be able to formulate strategies and will be able to measure its objective to know how it is going. Dell is trying to pursue more in innovation and enhancement of marketing ideas. This has been the viewed reason why it came to the point of reaching a high market share in the industry where it belongs. It has undeniably reached its competitive advantage and as a result, it turned out that its market share on certain market segments has been moving in an upward spiralling growth. Toyota on the other hand focused on its quality, but such move is its marketing strategy in order to focus on a certain market segment. Thus, over the course of time, Toyota considers its products as its primary assets. It is therefore important that its designs and other aspects related to quality should remain confidential so as to prevent loss of important information through information leakage to competitors. However, considering that competition is very tough, car manufacturing companies are very vigilant to watch out for latest designs because it is through this way they are guided about the latest trend of demand in the market. This covers a great portion of marketing activity. We know that the strategy in marketing involves identifying and understanding the needs of customers to deliver solutions that will satisfy them. This is the reason that various strategies in marketing do not focus so much on what product should be made. Rather, the focus in strategic marketing is on finding the reasons why products should be made. It is in this concern that various companies employ marketing research in order to identify customers’ needs. However, the focus of marketing research does not only involve concerns on what products to be made. The purposes of marketing research involve obtaining information to identify marketing opportunity or problem, determining the dimensions and magnitude, enumerating and evaluating alternative solutions, selecting the right course of actions based on the alternatives and following through (Boyd et al., 1977). In short, marketing research can provide information in identification of opportunities or problem situation prior to making the best possible decisions. It is the purpose of this paper to emphasize that an understanding of marketing research is essential for effective marketing. Thus, part of this is to understand marketing research in its wide range of applications. Furthermore, the idea of effective marketing concerning research marketing will be covered in detail. Business growth strategy and marketing research In a business growth strategy, marketing is known to play significant roles considering that competition is becoming fierce and many key players are readily willing to challenge the other. A company should be at an advantage over the other competing companies. Therefore, in a market-driven strategy, target buyers must be acquainted with the firm’s offering in order to address their needs. However, in today’s marketing system, people do not actually realise the fact they are buying products because they do not necessarily need them but due to the fact that companies are trying to encourage them through giving meaningful information about the product. How do companies finally come up with this strategy? In fact, many companies are trying to create demand for their product which proves the fact that providing the best mousetrap does not necessarily mean that the world will beat a path to someone’s door. It is necessary to create a demand for the product or offering. Most companies do this right after understanding customers’ needs. In the case of Dell for instance, they realised that customers are after of products that of high quality yet at a significantly affordable price and even it is much better if costs will be significantly lower. Dell realised that if their products pass through middlemen or brokers, the price of its offerings will end up with a higher price as they finally reach the customers. Thus, Dell found a way out in order to implement a product with high quality and at a lower price to be readily out in the market. In this case, Dell eliminated middlemen so as to directly get their offerings sold directly to their potential customers. How did Dell learn about this strategy? Of course, everything starts with an idea. However, such idea cannot be possibly tested without the need to go further and beyond prior to its implementation. Marketing is an important tool to have made everything about Dell’s idea a success. However, there are different aspects in marketing that needs to be worked out prior to implement ideas pertaining to building competitive advantage of the firm. Undeniably, one of the most important ideas is marketing research. Marketing research and identification of opportunities Marketing research as previously defined is a firm activity prior to making important corporate decisions. Part of such activity is to gather information so as to identify opportunities. For instance, international marketing research finds the need for advancement and opportunities for other research topics and diverse research methods (Nakata and Huang, 2005). Marketing research especially when applied to international businesses is said to be of great relevance and success in the new millennium (Tsu et al., 2002). This is a mere proof that marketing research is a must knowing its significance in the international business setting today. Not only that, marketing research seems to be directly connected to diverse research topics and research methods. There is a wide range of marketing research subjects and these involve marketing-sales relationship, sport participant’s satisfaction, importance-performance analysis, country of origin, internet banking, tourism and travel, and management leadership style (Ortega and Gonzalez, 2007). It is clear that gathering of information is the first move in order to identify opportunities. Information can just be around the corner. Marketing information is important. Part of obtaining marketing information is to conduct research. In marketing research, observation is one of the most important steps prior to creating possibilities in obtaining information. Aside from mere observation, there are other important research marketing methodologies and all of them could contribute to the need to identify information prior to identifying opportunities (Solomon et al., 2009). Every company that tries to be on top rely on the value of information. The quality of information that could be obtained however depends on the way it is obtained in the first place. In addition, the quality of information depends on the quality of data, how they are gathered and processed. Not every data can be essential information. Thus, part of marketing research is to carefully choose data that could be transformed into essential information (Boyd et al., 1977). As marketing has become a way of life for businesses, so as the marketing research. Every business is concerned with the potential of their products and offerings in the market. This is the reason that every company is looking forward to their future direction. For instance, the potential of mobile marketing is a great consideration knowing that it attracts attention but even so, it still requires future research direction (Vamali and Toker, 2010). It is therefore implied that the identification of opportunities through marketing research does not only focus on present condition but further future consideration is taken into account. Let us take closely in the case of internet marketing. Such level of marketing experience combines the fundamentals of marketing and advancement in information technology. This is the case of innovating possibilities in marketing efforts. This level of efforts needs to also consider the intensity required for marketing research experience. For instance, customer behaviour needs careful understanding as part of customer-centered and market oriented business approach. Some companies are targeting customers by the full potential of the internet (Cheng and Dogan, 2008). In this case, firms can have an easy and instant access of information they need. Not only that, customers must also be provided with effective product awareness and the possibility to explore purchase commitment (Kwan et al., 2005). After all, It is a fact that internet has become a new medium for advertising and understanding shopping behaviours of customers (Bucklin and Sismeiro, 2009). As noticed, the bottom line of this is to widely explore the new level of marketing research that can be suited to the combined efforts of information technology and the basics about traditional marketing system. This the case of two major disciplines fused into one significant component in today’s business activity. Thus, it is of great concern to innovate possibilities for marketing research especially that this new field of expertise in internet marketing is something new as far as the new level of strategic approach is concerned. In the case of Toyota, it is clear that part of its success is its better understanding of their current situation. This means that they have firm bases on their future level of improvement that needs to be achieved. This encompasses the whole organisation which means marketing has also played a critical role for the company’s future direction. One of the most important roles in marketing is to understand better the firm’s customers prior to giving them the satisfaction experience they deserve (Solomon et al., 2009). Customers are the real opportunities of every company considering the fact that every company needs to create a demand for its offerings. Customers are just and integral part in every business opportunities. This is the reason that various studies in marketing are conducted just in line with understanding better the customers. With marketing research, Toyota was able to understand more their prospective customers. In fact, this is the reason why the firm was able to create products or offerings of different styles and features. This is the effect of understanding different needs of customers prior to which segment they belong. Understanding the market segment is an integral part of every marketing research activity prior to understanding customers. According to Young and Javalgi (2007), marketing research is an instrument in order that companies will be able to understand better their current and future potential customers. This is true considering the fact that when it comes to every marketing activity, customers are always the main focus because a firm must necessarily satisfy its customers (Solomon et al., 2009). A positive satisfaction experience among customers is one of the best indications that a certain firm has essentially delivered the necessary elements for its offerings. Marketing research and identification of problems Satisfaction experience of customers is a very important consideration for every firm. This can be elaborated by the case of Toyota’s current recalls of its defective products. At present, it is creating discomfort for Toyota. Knowing the fact that its offerings are its significant assets, the currently heard world wide recalls of its cars momentarily hurts its future condition. Recalling its defective products is the first and primary approach in its current condition. Considering that this issue is in great portion in line with quality control, Toyota therefore has to create the necessary things to be done on this matter. However, the issue certainly does not only end up in improving the quality of its products. There is certainly a need to find out the level of customer satisfaction regarding with Toyota’s offerings and especially it is important to find out if customers are still willing to go try Toyota’s offerings. It is important to find out how many customers out there are still willing to invest in cars manufactured by Toyota. It is clear that these issues are covered by the broad area of marketing research. It can be therefore observed that with marketing research, certain problems can be turned into opportunity for improvement provided the right information will be obtained. The case of Toyota’s depressing moment recently is about not only trying to prove the quality of its products but there must an intense understanding of current stand of customers on its products because it entails customer satisfaction experience. Such information can be elaborately provided by marketing research. This is now the moment for Toyota to maximize the potential of marketing research activity particularly on customer satisfaction experience. After all, marketing research is a significant tool for every firm to understand better its current and future potential customers (Young and Javalgi, 2007). As mentioned earlier, effective marketing is something that guarantees competitive advantage. Today’s company’s orientations have changed a lot. Most of the companies have understood the necessary foundation in order to achieve competitive advantage. These companies have understood that effective marketing can just be right at the fingertips. Since the bottom line of any marketing activity is to satisfy customer and eventually reach competitive advantage then it is implied that effective marketing is about giving customer satisfaction. One of the ways to achieve customer satisfaction is to conduct research. Conducting studies in this field is an integral part of marketing research. However, as technology advances, there are issues that need to be taken into account. For instance, marketing managers have changed the way they do their job, which also changes some other significant topics and finally technology is capable of leading the way to do other new methodologies of research (Rust and Espinoza, 2006). It is therefore implied that marketing research in the advancement of technology can prove to be important but some major problems may be at stake. Marketing research is something new in the advent of advancement of technology. The right methodology therefore is concerned prior to finding out the most reliable way of conducting marketing research. Not only that, their might be a new challenge to be faced in understanding human resource considering that marketing managers job descriptions have changed a lot. The basic idea of marketing research can be integrated at present development of technology and human resource activity. However, there is no assurance that it can be patterned on how traditional way is conducted. In the gathering of data alone, marketing research is relying on the efficiency of methods and the quality of information to be provided by the respondents. The problem is not so much on the existence of new system but on how to understand further marketing relationship in today’s sophisticated way of conducting marketing with customers. It is important to understand what the customers try to value now, the level of their satisfaction regarding on how their suppliers deliver them such value and their changing perceptions about such value (Flint et al., 1997). These are just some of the great challenges in today’s marketing research activity and it is through them that further problems can be identified in the days to come. Moreover, it is through them that additional improvements in current marketing research activities can be built up so as to find potential information on how to build customer satisfaction. Summary Marketing research activity is an essential component of marketing activity in general. Many companies have integrated in their corporate system the competitive strategy and part of it is the marketing research activity. Many well known companies have taken the top place in the market considering the use of marketing research. Marketing research therefore is a significant tool in order for the firm to reach its competitive advantage and discover more of its potential. However, marketing research cannot stand without further consideration on how data is gathered and understanding of the current trend in marketing system. The advancement of technology proves to be a challenge in marketing research activity knowing that the traditional way may not necessarily apply with the present mind set in marketing activity. There have been many changes on how marketing activity functions at present and they can be further understood with marketing research activity. However, at some point there might be some significant issues to be considered prior to conducting research activity in today’s recent development in marketing. These challenges however are just stepping stones in order to formulate better approaches prior to the advantage of the firm. Every firm struggles to be on top, but there is always a significant opportunity for each of them considering that marketing research is a potential tool to achieve corporate objectives and competitive advantage of the firm. Conclusion Marketing research therefore is not just a significant tool to escalate firm’s development, but it is a primary tool for competitive advantage. Thus, it is important to understand marketing research because it is essential for effective marketing. Effective marketing is usually measured by the company’s level of attainment of its market share and on the level of its customers’ satisfaction with its offerings. The higher level of these proved to be a wide range of competitive advantage for the firm. Marketing research encompasses a great area of expertise in the entire marketing activity. However, with current trends in technology, changes and challenges the way marketing works within each of the firm, marketing research is trying to adapt innovative possibilities in order to implement its roles in the corporate world. Marketing research therefore is evolving as marketing activity evolves. The evolution of marketing research is just and indication that there have been substantial events just prior to creating effective marketing activities. This only proves that marketing research is an integral part of any marketing activity. References Boyd, H. w, Ralph, W. and Stanley, F. S. (1977) Marketing Research: Text and Cases. USA: Richard D. Irwin, Inc. Bucklin, R. E. and Sismeiro, C. 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