Marketing - Saturn Corporation in 1998 - Essay Example

When Saturn looks for parts suppliers for future vehicles, the Marketing and Product Planning team looks for companies that have not only the technology for today, but also have the depth in resources that will enable them to grow in technology and support. Saturn needs these suppliers to be a contributing part of the project development team. To help ensure effective involvement, Saturn enters into long-term, sometimes even lifetime contracts with selected suppliers. (Lenz, 1999, p. 53) The Saturn Corporation had to be in complete contact with the GM, since the GM planned to launch the big cars and decided to have a shift from small to mid size cars, Saturn Corporation should have planned the similar and should have quit the idea of manufacturing the same old small cars.

The reason that the strategy was not hard to implement is that the Saturn Corporation had previously been spotted number one in manufacturing small cars and because of that it had made some reputation and capital to cope well with the GM and this is exactly what GM had thought about the company. But it was not the part of the company’s mission statement and therefore the immediate job of the Saturn Corporation was to convince the GM that further launching of any such cars can make the market more competitive and already there are big leaders like Toyota and Honda performing well in the market, the scheme can be a flop.

Whereas if the GM keeps on manufacturing such small sized cars which are having lesser costs and are already competing Toyota and Honda, the GM and Saturn could both be in greater profitability. Further, the Saturn Corporation could have stated to GM that the target audience should be the younger generation who is not capable of buying expensive cars and therefore would buy smaller cars already being manufactured, further more the traffic is increasing day by day and therefore the demand of small cars would be even higher in the future and thus the company should keep