FIAT Case Study - Preparation for the exam, with answers PDF

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Preparation for the exam, with answers ...

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FIAT Case Study; Exam Revision; 1. Clearly state the problems that fiat is facing? “lack of a consistent brand imagine” “Falling market share” “first quarter losses of £333.6m” “Fiats lead UK agency is to be folded” “Fiat UK has experienced the biggest fall in sales” “… need to fend off a long standing consumer suspicion over build quality” “low repeat purchase” “a declining market share” “Being written about the debt that the company is in” “The brand will impinge on fiats territory” “… are using some brilliant advertising” “Given that fiats problems are at its core” To conclude it is obvious that Fiat are going through a rough time at the moment in terms of sales and competition, between 2001 and 2001 the registration of fiat cars declined by 15.96% along with a low purchase repeat. Their biggest issue at the moment is the threat of competitors, competitors such as peugot are using advertising to their advantage which fiat are failing to do this might have something to do with the apparent debt Fiat are facing. It has been suggested that fiats problems are at its core, it could be considered they could start improving themselves from the inside of the organization and working their way out.

2. Identify the information needed for fiat to solve these problems? Opportunities within the market, this could allow the company to analyse opportunities within the market which could help aid their innovation and products, this could potentially help boost sales. Customers have a suspicion about fiat and the lack of the company’s build quality, the company must investigate and see why they think this, this could easily be resolved by an insight video on how one of the cars are built (Similar to VW advertisement a few years back showing how the car is assembled, shared on the internet this could reach a large amount of their customer base. The company need to identify the problems that are resulting in their low repeat purchase, despite cars having a low repeat purchase rate it is still important for a company to be able to rely on the loyalty of their customers.

The company need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of their competitors in order to develop a product that will equal them or give them a competitive advantage. The new brand SMART has entered the market, the company need to investigate the new company in order to see whether or not they will be a threat.

3. Provide a detailed plan of how you would obtain the information you have identified in question 2, justifying your answer? Primary research in the form of a SWOT analysis could be used to analyse the company’s opportunities, in addition to this it could also be the perfect tool for identifying the companies threats and weaknesses too. This method can be cost effective as it is done by the company themselves unless they hire someone to do it for them, it will benefit the company by giving them a foundation to work upon in relation to their opportunities, it could also be used to identify whether or not the new company in the market, SMART, will be an additional threat to the company. The issue of low repeat purchasing will have to be tackled using a primary research method ideally through the use of a focus group or postal questionnaire using people from their current customer database. - Focus groups are a good way of physically interacting with customers through the use of a monitor who is there to structure the discussion so the company are able to get the information they need. Despite this being a good way to collect the information needed it must be noted that the monitor might cause bias, the monitor might intimidate the candidates and sway their answers which isn’t good as the company rely on accurate answers in order to be able to alter their product to ensure people begin repeat purchasing. - Postal questionnaire is a good way of contacting a wider amount of people on their database, this will allow the company to collect a wider range of information to help them with their investigation into low repeat purchases. Despite this there is the issue of questionnaires taking a lot of planning and altering before its ready to post to people, along with this there is the issue of not getting people to participate, quite often company’s send out multiple postal questionnaires and only get a fraction back, this wastes company resources and money which isn’t efficient, it’s a good way to contact them for reasons such as the low cost, absence of an interviewer to reduce bias, anonymity of participant which might encourage people to take part, and geographic flexibility, this means the company can contact a wide range of people in different geographic places. Response rates can possibly be increased by the use of cover letters, money, advance notification, pre-paid reply envelope and degree of personalisation. A PESTEL analysis can be used to monitor the (Extenal) macro-environment of a business, this then links into the threats and weaknesses identified in the SWOT analysis, PESTEL is used to identify potential problems to do with political, environmental, social, technological,

economic and Legal aspects of the company, again the use of this model can be cost effective for the company if done by the company themselves but some company’s may hire someone to keep time to a minimum. BCG Matrix – to help organisations with the task of managing their product line and portfolio. The first dimension looks at the general level of growth within its market, the second dimension then measures the products market share relative to the largest competitor in the industry....