Harley Davidson †Strategies Essay

Harley Davidson Company is a largest factory-sponsored motorcycle club in the world. It has a wide range of vision and mission that makes Harley-Davidson apart from the competition and why their brand strength is legendary. The United States customers for example, have come to trust the name Harley-Davidson, which gives the company a competitive advantage over their competitors. The company strives to improve growth and increase demand for Harley-Davidson motorcycles. Today the Harley Davidson Company takes the leading position in the business world, when demand exceeds supply this allows them to increase the prices of productions and stock. They have become a force to be reckoned with in the motorcycle industry, while continuing to maintain existence through either booming or recessive markets. The external matrix indicates that the Harley-Davidson company is above average when it comes to being perceptive and responsive in regards to opportunities and threats. Based on the weighted score of 3.  58, the major and minor strengths dominate the weak opportunities and threats. Besides from advantage of the company to the rest of the competitors, Harley-Davidson’s company looking at the other companies as a whole competitor, the hybrid expansion could generate a great deal more revenues (Datamonitor, 2006, p. 14). The competitive matrix indicates that Harley-Davidson holds a strong position among its competitors. Through brand image, customer loyalty, and a relatively stable financial position, the company can work towards growth in the global markets. One avenue is to purchase the 20 million shares of stock that the company has been authorized to buy back. Harley Davidson’s opportunity to buy back their shares is their opportunity to tell the world that they are still a financially stable company. This answer the question on how can Harley-Davidson improve its 2005 stock performance. Harley-Davidson, Inc TOWS Matrix The Matrix would give the best strategies in which Harley –Davidson Company motivates the customer heart and becoming a great tool of the company’s success as well. Under this matrix strategies developed were as follows with coded letter; Strengths (S), Weaknesses (W), Opportunities (O), Threats (T), Strengths & Opportunities ( SO) strategy, Weaknesses & Opportunities(WO) strategy, Strength & Threats (ST) Strategies, and Weaknesses & Threats (WT) Strategies. Under which noted that the strengths were comprises with at least factual description namely, 1. Brand Loyalty 2. Commanding Market share in heavy weight segment 3. Offering Cross Segments 4. Extensive Distribution Network 5. Strong Operating Performance and 6. Customers Loyalty. Furthermore, it is also noted from the list, the three listed weaknesses: Weak European business performance, Rising dealer inventory and decline in value of pre-owned vehicles and the SEC inquiry over production plants. While on the other hand, there are three opportunities offered by the company namely; SEC inquiry over production plants, Improvement in efficiency and Chinese Market. Plus other thing the company has to dealt with and made some direct action complied is the list of threats the company cannot avoid to tackle it efficiently. The threats were Intense Competition, Increase in raw material cost and Regulatory Issues. With such matrix strategies of the company, other new strategies can be developing that also of great used in the new company. From there, we can design a Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) strategies, SPACE, BCG, IE, Grand Strategy, and QSPM matrices that’s is also valuable to use in order to improve the business progress and development. Conclusions The company’s current strategies appeared to following, the Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats (SWOT) strategies, that is, in addition to the previous existing strategies which are SWOT originated. Thus it gives the company big booms of success. That is, based on the financial and analytical data, Harley Davidson is a strong financial organization that has been in business for over 100 years and if they continue in the way they are working, they could remain in business another 100 years. The underlying grand strategy or strategy theme of the company is that, company uses an aggressive strategy, because it would be in the upper right, aggressive quadrant. The Explanation to this would be graphing the change of FSIS in the plane of CAIS versus FSES, the result would be increasing change of FSIS was found. Hence with these amazing results, the  Company gained the financial strength & industry strength (FSIS) increasing as the financial Strength positively overcome as well as the industry strength also positively reached. Stating the immediate and future strategy recommendations for the company will be , taking into accounts that competitor continuously becoming at large and introduces more vivid product assurance , the company can still compete more effectively if the continuous studies about how to gain trust among customers and also continuous seeking more effective strategies that will fits the need of the customers. Thus for sure the more the company blooms up to the highest level among the rest of the competitors. Providing a selection rationale and financial justification about the company’s financial strength will be Harley-Davidson, Inc has developed strategies in line with their aspirations to grow within a Global Market. The company prides itself on having brand recognition and customer loyalty. In the terms of generating revenues, the company has dominated the domestic market versus their competitor’s ability. Harley-Davidson is comprised of four segments (Datamonitor, 2006, p.  28). This enables them to focus on different targeted customers. The segments consist of standard, performance, touring and customized motorcycles (Datamonitor, 2006, p. 28). Other strengths include strong operating performance and distribution network. Harley products are sold by over 1,300 dealers globally (Datamonitor, 2006, p. 29). The ability to market and promote a brand name product to people all over the world, through various networking capabilities, provides the company will a stronger market position. The strong operating performance can be based upon the growth of the company. Looking at revenues from 2003 to 2005, the company has increased funds by almost 14. 5 percent within two years (Income Statement: Forbes. Com). According to the quarterly reports on Forbes, it appears that for 2006, the company will exceed the previous years’ revenues. Therefore, the company is continually growing and making their presence known in the industry.