This case study is about “Specialized Bicycle Components Inc.” known as Ride the Red “S”. Specialized was founded in 1974 by Mike Sinyard. According to Chris Murphy, director of marketing for Red “S”, specialized is for serious riders. He says, “The customer is buying the ride from us, not just the bike.” The company began to produce its own bike parts by 1976, and introduced the first major production mountain bike in the world in 1980. Specialized now has an extensive global distribution network of 5000 retailers in 35 countries in Asia, North America, South America, and Australia. They maintained a reputation as the technological leader in the bike and bike accessories. The formal mission is still the same since they established the company “To give everyone the best ride of their life.” Specialized produces a full range of high-end and entry-level road bikes, mountain bikes, commuter/city bikes, children’s bikes, BMX bikes, and offers an extensive line of bike accessories. They divide the bike market in two categories: (1) the retailer- it only sells to the retailer because they realizes a strong relationship with the dealers is a key factor for success. (2) The end-user consumer- its focus in designing the product and broken down into the target age groups. SWOT Analysis: Internal Strengths • Higher technology and enough innovation ability in design. • Good retailer relationship and extensive global distribution network (5000 retailers in the world) • Good advertisement. • The people in the company and the passion which the people have for what they were doing. Weaknesses • Sales amount was going down. • Dealers don’t have the time to educate customer in each product of every line that they carry. • Just focus on the retailer instead of the end-users. • Competition - There are now more than 20 manufacturers in the bicycle industry and Specialized will need to stay at the forefront in order to keep its leadership. External Opportunities • More people (94%) have new requirements for bicycles; the customers need bikes in different fields. • The popularity of Lance Armstrong has increased the interest on road bike, which represent 5% of the market. • The growing interest in cycling this is result in magazine coverage and the using of bikes and accessories in window displays that related to cycling. • The company constantly visits and context dealer to keep in touch with the changes needs and desires for the consumers and dealers.
Allstate insurance is the second largest property and casualty insurance company by premiums in the United States. Allstate insurance handles about 12% of the U.S home and auto insurance market. (Allstate, 2014). Many of Allstate’s customers fall under what one could refer to as a traditional selection of insurance for automobiles. Recently, Allstate has noticed a major shortcoming in lifestyle insurance, which includes coverage for motorcycles, boats, and other recreational vehicles, in comparison to its competitors. The motorcycle insurance sector is a 10.4 billion dollar industry and growing (PRWEB, 2012). The U.S. Department of Transportation website reports some astounding figures, including that 5,370,035 motorcycles were registered three years before the article, 7,138,476 motorcycles registered at the time of the article, and grew to 9,477,243 registered motorcycles at the end of 2012 (NHTSA, 2013). It is obvious as to why Allstate would identify motorcycle insurance as a worthy lifestyle product to devote marketing research dollars into in order to develop new strategies for cornering a share of the market.
The product team kept in very close contact with the customers through phones, email, blogs, surveys, polls and supporting feedback from the users.
New bikes were being created such as the, BMX, Mountain Bikes, and Road bikes. From the 1970 and the 1980s the BMX and Mountain bikes were the most popular bike used around the world. Many Bikes are not being used now because of cars and trains. Many people use it for tricks and for fun or race on the Tour De France. Approximately 9 million people are riding their bike to school, work, or fun
I love riding my bike and I love buying new parts for my bike. I really don’t want to go out and buy bike parts that everybody likes and then when I get it come to find out they suck. I buy bike parts for myself and for nobody else’s pleasure.
"Harley-Davidson: At Last" as presented in Hartley's Marketing Mistakes and Successes presents the circumstances around HD's near collapse and since rinse to near mythic success. This case is a great example of marketing myopia; HD saw them-selves as full-size motorcycles' manufactures, not in the transportation, or even the entertainment industry. They believed no one bought motorcycles for transportation, but rather for leisure time use.
Young males, and females are buying HD motorcycles over any other competitor. This thought was accomplished through the introduction of the VRSC’S, and the lower and narrow Sportsters, Dyna’s, Softail’s and positioning them in the market to a younger demographic. Secondly, HD needs to position the VRSC’S, Sporster, Dyna and Softail to also appeal to first time buyers of motorcycles.
According to Pep Boys, (2015), a third concept known as Express Service Parts allows Pep Boys to sell automotive parts to the professional installer. This concept began in the mid-1990s (Boys, The Pep Boys--Manny, Moe & Jack SWOT Analysis, 2015). Consequently, with this third concept, Pep Boys is able to keep up and exceed their competition’s standards for customer service. The stakeholder values center around a culture of fair play and honest business dealings in the day by day operation of the company. The stakeholders are as follows; Ichan Enterprises, which hold a major part of Pep Boys stock, stock holders, as well as the supply warehouses that resupply Pep Boys with auto parts (Schaefer,
It was an unforgiving 95 degrees Fahrenheit in eastern France last week. Rain had fallen nearly every day of the week prior to Stage 16, Wednesday, July 21, making for a very steamy road up the face of one of the most unforgiving mountain rides a cyclist can make in the course of his or her riding career. Nearly one million people lined the narrow mountain road leading to the peak of L'Alpe D'Huez to watch a one man, Lance Armstrong, in the time trial of his life. This seemingly immortal man had survived cancer to make this climb his top achievement leading him to victory five times previously. Could Lance pull off an unprecedented sixth win? He rehearsed this scene time after time over the course of the previous year in preparation for such a time as this. That preparation paid off. He climbed this mountain in exactly 61 seconds faster than any of his nearly 200 competitors. One million people in a less than 20 mile stretch of road all to watch a bicycle race. But this was no normal race, this was, after all, The Tour de France. Considered to be the most physically unremitting sporting event known to man, this mere bicycle race has a history richer than many nations in and of themselves. Over a hundred years ago, in a turbulent, at best, France, two men found their way into a personal disagreement. The results of which, over a century later would still draw spectators by the thousands to the hillsides of France for what would become the greatest continuing nationalist and sporting spectacle of that country.
Generally, unlike the automobile market whereby companies use differential tools to achieve differentiation, differentiation in the motorcycle sector is highly difficult owing to the products’ nature – products are durable, but their homogeneity is more or less the same. Yet companies, for instance Harley-Davidson, offer product differentiations via product design, performance, and features. Services provided include damaged product or broken spare parts’ replacements, and ensuring a quick supply via a company’s own channels of distribution; after-sales services are being provided by these companies in order to strengthen relationships with customers.
The more the bicycles created, the more children are facilitated to find ways of transportation. According to College for America (2015), last year before the partnership Spokes of Hope provided 47,000 bicycles to students worldwide. With the partnership, Spokes of Hope will be able to provide 75,000 bicycles to students this
The “Economics of Bicycling in SC” article presents a lot of valuable information about the economic and private benefits of bicycling and bicycle lanes as well as the savings of taking advantage of such transportation. The North Carolina Outer Banks made an investment on bike facilities and its return was incredible high resulting in a 9 to 1 annual return. More than fifty percent of the tourists in the Outer Banks said the bike facilities are a large contributing factor for them to return in the future. In Memphis, Tennessee a business owner said that “the [bike] lanes slowed down the traffic and people started noticing the business more”. Since the introduction of the bike lanes in the Memphis district his business has also grown in average thirty percent per year even though the business is art-related, which makes growing very complicated in a tough economy. Due to the bike lanes this same district has boomed with many new businesses, property renovations, higher demand by restaura...
Italian manufacturer Piaggio ranks as one of the world’s top four players in its core business. It has consolidated leadership in the European 2-wheeler market. Piaggio should not miscalculate its competitors. Competition in the industry is very powerful, not only nationally but internationally as well. This is due to two well-established companies in this sector which are the Japanese Yamaha and Honda. Yamaha and Honda strengths are their long-run experience in the sector and the high quality image of products. Due to participations to the motorcycle championships, these two companies constantly receive positive feedbacks to their efforts in researching for first class products. In the future, other kinds of competitors are expected to arise: Chinese companies whose ability to imitate and create similar products at highly competitive prices is getting more and more dangerous (Piaggio, 2008)
advances in technology that the bike has gone through, and what might be in the
Threat of substitutes in market as best quality is not always a priority for some customers as they are price sensitive.
Although bicycles are known for being very convenient and economical, they can cause accidents on the road with other vehicles, and it can make driving next to bicycles a safety hazard. “But while bicycles are defined as vehicles by most state laws and have a legitimate right to the road, from a safety and operations perspective they are not the same as cars” (Sandt). Bicycles are physically and mechanically distinct from cars. According to Laura Sandt, bicycles have dissimilar weights and dimensions, travel speeds and stopping distances than cars and these factors need to be taken into account when roadways are being designed. Additionally, cyclists as a population are not similar as the car-driving population because some people may ha...