General Motors: Organizational and Marketing Analysis - Term Paper Example

? Project: General Motors Table of Contents Section A: Organization Information 3 Section B: Products Marketed 4 Section C: Place channels of distribution 5 Section D: Promotion Marketing Communications 5 Section E: Pricing Strategy 6 Section F: Target Market 6 Reference 8 Section A: Organization Information The General Motors is one of the largest and most popular automobile brands in the United States of America in terms of number of units manufactured on an annual basis. Due to its long years of existence in the automobile as well as the business sector, the company has a lot of history associated with it. Talking in regards to the initial days of the world’s most popular automobile company, it can be said that General Motors was founded in the year 1908 by William Billy Durant. The backdrop behind the inception of the company was the New York Auto Show of the year 1900, which was immensely successful in garnering a lot of positive attention from the masses. Before foraying into the automobile sector through the foundation of General Motors, the founder was highly successful in the manufacturing business of horse driven vehicles in the United States. Talking in regards to the strategy implemented by General Motors, for attaining business growth in the automobile market that provided extremely strong business opportunities as of the early days of automobile manufacturing, it needs to be mentioned that the company focused on growing through acquisition. Though in the very beginning, General Motors was holding only the Buick Motor Company, yet in a very short time the company has acquired Cadillac, Oldsmobile as well as Oakland, which is the modern day Pontiac. The company also focused on strategic acquisition of Opel, which concentrated on the entering the automobile market with their basic patent in the year 1899 (General Motors -1, 2013). Though the company’s core business offering is the automobile sector but the company has diversified in the recent years. As of the recent times, the company has transformed itself in to a global conglomerate, with offering in a wide range of sectors. It needs to be mentioned that GM at present has around 396 facilities all over the world (General Motors -2, 2013). The company has its footprints spread across multiple continents like North America, Europe, Asia as well as South America. Talking in regards to annual sales of the company, it needs to be mentioned that as of March 2013, the company sold around 245,950 units. This resulted in a spike of around 6 percent in annual sales in regards to the previous year (General Motors -3, 2013). While discussing on the lines of annual dollar sales, the data from various newspaper articles highlight that the company booked a profit of over 7.5 billion USD as of the year 2011 (Roberson, 2012). Section B: Products Marketed It is of considerable importance to say that the company General Motors has a highly diversified product portfolio. It needs to be mentioned that the company’s product portfolio for the multiple continents comprises of cars, crossovers as well as trucks. Discussing in a more specific manner, it can be highlighted that the product offerings extends from mini cars and electric vehicles to mega sized trucks, convertibles as well as monocabs. Talking in regards to the brands marketed by the largest automobile company on the lines of product volume, it can be said that the brands of General Motors are made available at around 120 countries across the globe. The popular brands of General Motors comprise of Buick, Chevrolet, GMC, Baojun, Cadillac, Holden, Jiefang, Isuzu, Vauxhall, Wuling and Opel. Also, since, the company has considerable amount of stakes in multiple joint ventures in China, it also holds some credit for some of the Chinese automobile brands and models (General Motors -2, 2013). While discussing about product packaging, it needs to be highlighted that the product that is being discussed in this particular case belongs to the automobile sector. Hence, no packaging is applicable, unlike the offerings of the sector related to fast moving consumer goods or consumer durables. However, it can be said that since the products are exposed to the consumers, the factor of distinction associated with the packaging of products is mainly done on the lines of product design. Section C: Place channels of distribution It needs to be mentioned that the popular US based automobile brand is present in multiple countries around the world. Hence, to make its product available in the multiple global markets, the company needs to have an extensive distribution network. For the purpose of making the products available to the consumers and customers located in various global markets, it can be said that the company uses a multi tiered distribution channel, which includes distributors and dealers. The distributors are spread out in various global locations. A number of dealers are also present in various global locations who increasingly operate under various distributors. Talking in regards to statistical data, it can be said that the company has around 4500 dealers who play a major role in selling the four major GM brands (General Motors -4, 2012). It can be specifically mentioned that the dealers, who are part of the distribution channel for GM’s products has outlets in various domestic locations. Section D: Promotion Marketing Communications It can be said that promotion is a very important part of the entire marketing campaign. The variable promotion which is a part of the marketing mix, talks about the various issues related to the process of communicating the values of the product to the intended consumers or the desire target audience. Talking in regards to the promotion strategy of the US based automobile company, it can be said that the focus is diverse in nature. The company focuses on the process of promoting its multiple new variants of particular series of automobiles at the time of launch of new products. Also, it can be said that the company engages in marketing communication on a regular basis so as to communicate the value of its product offerings to the consumers. This helps in a great way in the boosting the sales of the automobiles. Talking in regards to the ways of communicating the values of its products, the US based General Motors focuses on using a mix of the traditional as well as the online media. Also, the company uses the various auto shows to display its luxury and ultra class variants as well as the flagship models to the consumers. Section E: Pricing Strategy Talking in regards to pricing policies of the company, it can be highlighted that the company engages in competitive pricing for its products. Since, the company has a highly diversified portfolio of automobile products, which are spread over multiple demographic target markets, hence, it can be said that the prices of the company’s products are bound to vary across various geographical locations. Section F: Target Market It is of considerable importance to mention that the largest automobile company of the United States faced serious issues during the year 2008 in regards to issues of bankruptcy. This resulted in restructuring of its business operations as well as the business processes of the company. As a result of shift in business restructuring, it needs to be mentioned that the company has focused on entering into various new markets. With the western markets getting gripped in major uncertainties on the lines of macroeconomic issues the focus of the company was largely shifted to the emerging markets, which are attaining an increase in regards to the purchasing power parity (PPP) of the consumers. It has been forecasted by the company that the car market in the BRIC countries will account for the collective growth of around 12 million vehicles by the year 2013 as compared to that of 2010 (General Motors – 5, 2010, p. 8). This has resulted to shift of focus to the BRIC countries like Brazil, Russia, India and China. Talking in regards to the target market for the company’s products, it can be said that the company is focusing on the younger segment in the BRIC countries, mainly because of robust economies as well as increase in individual wealth. Reference General Motors -1, 2013. Company: History & Heritage. [Online] Available at: http://www.gm.com/company/historyAndHeritage/creation.html [Accessed 16 April 2013] General Motors -2, 2013. Our Company. [Online] Available at: http://www.gm.com/company/aboutGM/our_company.html [Accessed 16 April 2013] Roberson, J., 2012. GM books record annual profit; union workers due $7,000. [Online] Available at: http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/companies/earnings/story/2012-02-16/general-motors/53113520/1 [Accessed 16 April 2013] General Motors -3, 2013. GM Reports Best March Sales in Five Years. [Online] Available at: http://www.gm.com/content/gmcom/home/company/investors/sales-production.content_pages_news_us_en_2013_apr_gmsales.~content~gmcom~home~company~investors~sales-production.html [Accessed 16 April 2013] General Motors -4, 2012. GM Dealer Network. [Online] Available at: http://media.gm.com/product/mobile/us/en/gm_facts/news.detail.html/content/Pages/news/microsites/gm_facts/gm_dealer_network.html [Accessed 16 April 2013] General Motors – 5, 2010. Annual Report, 2010. [Online] Available at: http://www.gm.com/content/dam/gmcom/COMPANY/Investors/Corporate_Governance/PDFs/StockholderInformationPDFs/Annual-Report.pdf [Accessed 16 April 2013] Read More