External Analysis of the Motorcycle Industry
Like other companies, HD operates in a complex global industry. In order to develop and execute a successful strategy, the HD Motorcycle Corporation must take into account the global automotive environment. In this case assignment you are going to be asked to discuss HD from a strategic perspective.
Please read the information in the background material, look for more information, and then write a 4 to 5 pages report for your professor and the executives of Toyota corporation by answering the following questions:
i) What are HD’s Opportunities for moving forward in the competitive motorcycle manufacturing and sales environment?
ii) What threats does the company face?
iii) Consider the Lehman Trikes case study below. To what extend do you think the alliance between HD and Lehman Trikes presented an opportunity for HD? To what exent do you think this was an opportunity for Lehman? Make sure you support your arguments.
Here is the Lehman Trikes article:
Looney, D. C., & Ryerson, A. (2011). Lehman Trikes: A story within a story. Journal Of The International Academy For Case Studies, 17(7), 45-58. (Available via the Library by way of the EBSCO database).
NOTE: Please note that your report/assignment will not be accepted without proper citations and references. You must use the sources from the background material together with the sources you find your own.
Required Readings
Review the reading materials presented in the earlier modules as many of them may prove useful for this module since we still have one eye on the external environment. The external environment after all, is where all the competitors, suppliers and customers reside.
Here are some useful documents you might want to take a look at to provide information to support your key arguments:
Here is an article that discusses some internal and external challenges faced by Harley Davidson:
Taylor, A., (2012). The Hurdles at Harley-Davidson. CNN Money – Fortune. Retrieved from: http://money.cnn.com/2012/10/03/autos/harley-davidson-polaris.fortune/index.html
Here is a very brief strategic analysis of HD. It will provide you with some useful information in putting together your assignments and should give you some ideas on how to fashion a brief strategic analysis.
GlobalData, (2012). Harley-Davidson, Inc. – Financial and Strategic Analysis Review. Retrieved from: http://callisto.ggsrv.com/imgsrv/Fetch?banner=4d609cd7&digest=27b6b6d33026b58ef227e0025dda7d42&contentSet=SWOT&recordID=47405_GDAUT29887FSA
Here is a fairly recent article that speaks to HD’s worldwide sales:
UMC Staff, (2013) Harley-Davidson | 2012 Worldwide Sales Up 6.2%. Ultimate Motorcycling. Retrieved from: http://ultimatemotorcycling.com/harley-davidson-2012-worldwide-sales-up-6-2/
Here is a press release from 2012 that provides some good overview information on what was going on at HD in August of 2012:
Harley Davidson, (2012). Harley Davidson shows continued improvement. Retrieved from: http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Content/Pages/HD_News/Company/news.html?article=en_US/News/1483_press_release.hdnews
Here is an overview of SWOT analyses. There are examples at the bottom of the web page you might want to take a look at as well.
Marketingteacher.com (2011). SWOT Analysis. Retrieved, from http://marketingteacher.com/lesson-store/lesson-swot.html
The following power point is also useful to understand external analysis of the company:
Be.wvu.edu (n.d.). External analysis. Retrieved, from www.be.wvu.edu/divmim/mgmt/insch/External.ppt
Here is the case assignment article:
Looney, D. C., & Ryerson, A. (2011). Lehman Trikes: A story within a story. Journal Of The International Academy For Case Studies, 17(7), 45-58. (Available via the Library by way of the EBSCO database).
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