The Marketing Plan Of Yamaha

Introduction

India Yamaha Motor Private Limited.

Yamaha made its initial foray into India in 1985. Subsequently, it entered into a 50:50 joint-venture with the Escorts Group in 1996. However, in August 2001, Yamaha acquired its remaining stake becoming a 100% subsidiary of Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd, Japan (YMC). In 2008, Mitsui & Co., Ltd. entered into an agreement with YMC to become a joint-investor in the motorcycle manufacturing company “India Yamaha Motor Private Limited (IYM)”.

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IYM operates from its state-of-the-art manufacturing units at Surajpur in Uttar Pradesh and Faridabad in Haryana and produces motorcycles for both domestic and export markets. With a strong workforce of more than 2,000 employees, IYM is highly customer-driven and has a countrywide network of over 400 dealers. Presently, its product portfolio includes VMAX (1,679cc), MT01 (1,670cc), YZF-R1 (998cc),YZF-R15 (150cc), Fazer (153cc), FZ-S (153cc), FZ16 (153cc), SZ & SZ-X (153cc), SS125 (123cc), YBR 125 (123cc), YBR 110 (106cc) and Crux (106cc).

. Vision

They will establish YAMAHA as the “exclusive & trusted brand” of customers by “creating Kando” (touching their hearts) – the first time and every time with world class products & services delivered by people having “passion for customers”.

.Mission/Objectives

They are committed to:

Be the Exclusive & Trusted Brand renowned for marketing and manufacturing of YAMAHA products, focusing on serving their customer where they can build long term relationships by raising their lifestyle through performance excellence, proactive design & innovative technology. Their innovative solutions will always exceed the changing needs of their customers and provide value added vehicles.

Build the Winning Team with capabilities for success, thriving in a climate for action and delivering results. Their employees are the most valuable assets and they intend to develop them to achieve international level of professionalism with progressive career development. As a good corporate citizen, they will conduct their business ethically and socially in a responsible manner with concerns for the environment.

Grow through continuously innovating their business processes for creating value and knowledge across their customers thereby earning the loyalty of their partners & increasing their stakeholder value.

.Customer no.1

They put customers first in everything they do. They take decisions keeping the customer in mind.

Challenging Spirit

They strive for excellence in everything they do and in the quality of goods & services they provide. They work hard to achieve what they commit & achieve results faster than their competitors and they never give up.

Team-work

They work cohesively with their colleagues as a multi-cultural team built on trust, respect, understanding & mutual co-operation. Everyone’s contribution is equally important for their success.

Frank & Fair Organization

They are honest, sincere, open minded, fair & transparent in their dealings. They actively listen to others and participate in healthy & frank discussions to achieve the organization’s goals/objectives.

India Yamaha Motor Limited, known for its strong focus on the urban market in the country, has decided to go for a strategic shift in its business move.

The two-wheeler player which is only a fringe player in the country’s rural market, which accounts for only 15% of its overall sales, intends to tap this market in a big way.

YBR 110, the latest bike from the Yamaha stable to have been launched in India, will target the rural markets. As of that time, Yamaha Crux is the company’s best seller in the rural market due to its good quality, long life engine and high mileage.

“Rural markets are the growth drivers for any company and they are no different. Yamaha has already penetrated into the entry level segment and has been successful in all its ventures. To tap this potential segment, they are focusing on increasing their network strength in tier-2 and tier-3 cities and increasing their sub-dealers in rural areas”,, national business head, India Yamaha Motor Limited told Business Standard.”Yamaha Crux is doing very well in the domestic and overseas market. Adding to this is their new launch YBR 110 which will definitely target the rural markets, add to their sales numbers and increase their presence in the rural areas. They expect to grow more and improve their performance in rural India”,

Yamaha is wary of competition from the well entrenched players but hopes to counter the competition through its unique product offering.

“They don’t see any direct competition between Yamaha’s offerings and other companies. The Indian biking market is undergoing a complete transformation in terms of both product offering and customer preferences. Today, the Indian biker is driven by technology and style and Yamaha products perfectly fit the bill”.

Though Yamaha has a 12% market share in the deluxe bike segment, it is still a marginal player in the country’s two-wheeler market with a meagre share of 3.5%.

Yamaha Motor Corp will invest about $200 million in its Indian unit over three years as it completes a third plant, which will ramp up capacity to 1 million units.

“For the coming three years, they think they will invest 7-8 billion rupees ($178-203 million),” Takashi Kajikawa, president and CEO of Yamaha Motor, told a news conference at the India Auto Expo.

“They’re looking at getting double-digit growth. They should touch 10% (market share) by 2010.

By end-2010, Yamaha will complete its third plant in India, on the outskirts of New Delhi, and raise capacity to 1 million bikes annually.

The company is targeting a share of 10% by the end of 2012.

Yamaha has seen a fall in its sales in India, with April-December 2007 figures half of those for the corresponding period of 2006, part of a general decline in bike sales in India brought about by rising financing costs.

They were focussing on rural market but by rising financing costs the sales and demand has seen a great fall. Their products enter in the declining stage.

Product Declining Stage

A reduction in product demand and sales occurs either slowly or rapidly, depending on the type of product provided to consumers, thus causing the product to enter the decline stage. A Sale decline may be due to technological advances, shifts in consumer tastes, or increased competition. Management can choose to continue to market the product (also known as maintaining the product), harvesting the product by reducing overhead costs such as R&D in the hopes of continued sales of the product. As this the demand and sales of Yamaha bikes were reducing in India because people wants premium and deluxe products and Yamaha emphasis on value for money. So the sales of Yamaha bikes were drastically declining in Indian market .

Sales always decline in this stage. Understanding the decline stage will help us to keep our product producing sales longer.

In the decline stage of the marketing product development cycle, product owners lower or discontinue marketing efforts and expenses. The trick is for lower marketing efforts of them while competitors discontinue theirs.

Similarly, if we continue to sell our product while our competitors pull their products from the market, we can squeeze out the last few sales for our product.

Marketing Product Life Cycle

Why Sales Decline

Sales decline during this stage of the marketing product life cycle because:

the market has become saturated,

the technology has become obsolete, or

the trend creating the demand has ended.

The result is that unless our product is perishable or consumable, few customers still want or need our product. Market segmentation can enable us to find those few customers and to out-market our competitors to get those customers’ purchases.

Marketing Product Life Cycle

Using Marketing Research

Can Slow Decline

To continue making enough sales to earn a profit, we need to use market research to determine:

how much you need to lower prices,

which distribution outlets we should use at this stage, and

how our other products can benefit from brand marketing from our declining product.

Just as we want our child to have a long life and live well into senior years, we want our product to extend its life through the decline stage of the marketing product life cycle.

Market segmentation can provide extended life to our product by revealing the last remnants of customers needing the product and by discovering new uses for our product. So we can increase our profits through this final stage of the marketing product life cycle.

Product Development

Meaning- The overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and marketing plan creation and evaluation, and commercialization of a new product

Innovative new products are the fuel for the most powerful growth engine we can connect to.

If we decide to develop new products as part of our growth plan, we’re in good company.

New product development can be described as a five-stage process, beginning with generating ideas and progressing to marketing completed products. In between are processes where we evaluate and screen product ideas, take steps to protect your ideas, and finalize design in an R&D stage. Following are details on each stage:

Generating ideas -Generating ideas consists of two parts: creating an idea and developing it for commercial sale. There are many good techniques for idea creation, including brainstorming, random association and even daydreaming. We may want to generate a long list of ideas and then whittle them down to a very few that appear to have commercial appeal.

Evaluating and screening product ideas- Everybody likes their own ideas, but that doesn’t mean others will. When we are evaluating ideas for their potential, it’s important to get objective opinions. For help with technical issues, many companies take their ideas to testing laboratories, engineering consultants, product development firms, and university and college technical testing services. When it comes to evaluating an idea’s commercial potential, many entrepreneurs use the Preliminary Innovation Evaluation System (PIES) technique. This is a formal methodology for assessing the commercial potential of inventions and innovations.

Protecting your ideas- If we think we’ve come up with a valuable idea for a new product, we should take steps to protect it. Most people who want to protect ideas think first of patents. There are good reasons for this. For one thing, we will find it difficult to license our idea to other companies, should we wish to do so, without patent protection. However, getting a patent is a lengthy, complicated process, and one we shouldn’t embark on without professional help; this makes the process expensive. If we wish to pursue a patent for our ideas, contact a registered patent attorney or patent agent.

Many firms choose to protect ideas using trade secrecy. This is simply a matter of keeping knowledge of their ideas, designs, processes, techniques or any other unique component of their creation limited to thereself or a small group of people. Most trade secrets are in the areas of chemical formulas, factory equipment, and machines and manufacturing processes. The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the best-recognized and most successful trade secrets.

Finalizing design research and development- Research and development is necessary for refining most designs for new products and services. As the owner of a growing company, we are in a good position when it comes to this stage. Most independent inventors don’t have the resources to pay for this costly and often protracted stage of product introduction. Most lenders and investors are trapped by a Catch-22 mentality that makes them reluctant to invest in ideas until after they’re proven viable in the marketplace. If we believe in our idea, we can be the first to market.

R&D consists of producing prototypes, testing them for usability and other features, and refining the design until we wind up with something we think we can make and sell for a profit. This may involve test-marketing, beta testing, analysis of marketing plans and sales projections, cost studies, and more. As the last step before you commit to rolling your product out, R&D is perhaps the most important step of all.

Promoting and marketing your product- Now that we have a ready-for-sale product, it’s time to promote, market and distribute it. Many of the rules that apply to existing products also apply to promoting, marketing and distributing new products. However, new products have some additional wrinkles. For instance, our promotion will probably consist of a larger amount of customer education, since we will be offering them something they have never seen before. Our marketing may have to be broader than the niche efforts we’ve used in the past because, odds are, we’ll be a little unsure about the actual market out there. Finally, we may need to test some completely new distribution channels until we find the right place to sell our product.

Strategic Marketing Tools

Our tools are organized under our 5-Step Planning process. See down to find the step and tool that interests us most.

The Market To Win Five Step Planning Process. Key Tasks

1.Pre-planning

3b. Define the Key Challenges

3a. Segment the Market

3d. Define the Value Proposition

3c. Target the Best Segments

3.Formulate Marketing Strategy

2b. Internal Business Audit

2a. External Market Audit

1b. Launch the Work

1a. Plan the Work

2.Undertake Marketing Audit

4. Complete the Marketing Plan

5. Implement & Review

1. Pre-planning- The pre planning by Yamaha is that they pre-prepare themselves for the this declining stage of their bikes. They already made new bikes from their own product innovations for that drastic situation of declining and just need the right time to launch them.

2. Marketing audit/research-They did market research in advance that their products are declining because of rising financing cost. As they were focussing rural market and rising financing cost has affects the sales of their products. They also research that the taste of consumers are also changed, where their product was declining because of rising financing cost on the other side consumer are ready to buy premium and deluxe bikes. Business for premium and deluxe bikes was increased.

3. Market strategy- The market strategy Yamaha used that time they introduce their right products as per market demand. They focus on premium bikes segment that time. The key challenge was rising financing cost. They understand that the price will be not an issue for the premium and deluxe segment customers so the rising financing cost will not effect the sales and demand of their products and they were right.

4. Market plan- Yamaha uses right market plan with right market audit and with their right products for that time and got success for firm.

5. Implemented & review- They implemented the right market plan in that declining stage of their products and in review they got success for their brand, products and maintain their image in motor biking industry.

It is a sad fact that many marketing plans do not get implemented well.  There are many possible reasons for this but certainly poor project and change management is a key one.  If we do the pre-planning work well, there is more chance the Marketing Plan will be accepted and implemented as Yamaha done.

Re-launch or reposition

One strategy is the re-launch and re-position mature brands. Yamaha doesn’t use this strategy because the taste of consumers is also changed.

Product Innovation

Product innovation is another strategy. They uses this strategy they innovate with their own products like Yamaha R1 and introduce their new products.

The firm launched four new models in 2008. Two of them was of 125 cc and launched in February 2008. The other two, both of 150 cc, came in July and in November.

Three new Yamaha Bikes for India in 2008

Globally, Yamaha Motorcycles has a performance oriented brand image and is known for their technological excellence. But thats not the case for Yamaha India with their damp and not so exciting current line-up of bikes. Realizing the power and growth potential of the Indian 2-wheeler market, Yamaha is bent on re-establishing themselves in India, only this time aiming for the brand image rather than going after mass market sales. As part of their strategy YMI recently launched the world class YZF R1 and MT01, furthermore Yamaha launched 3 new bikes in India in 2008.

Yamaha YZF-R15

2008 Yamaha yzf r15 India

Sports oriented, Yamaha YZF R15 is a track ready, made for India bike inheriting from the Yamaha R1. The new single cylinder, 4-stroke, 150cc engine has 4-valves, is liquid cooled and have Fuel Injection. The bike also has front and rear disc brakes. R15 launched in India in 2008. The power output was around 18 bhp.

Yamaha FZ (150)

Yamaha fz 150 India 2008

IMO The best looking among the 3, the Yamaha FZ is a mean-looking naked street bike, again made for India inheriting from the European FZ1. FZ share R15′s 150cc single cylinder engine but have air-cooled.Yamaha FZ 150 was also launched in India 2008.

Yamaha Gladiator Type SS / RS

Yamaha Gladiator 2008 SS & RS India

Yamaha Gladiator was available in two new variants – Type SS (Stylish & Sporty) & Type RS (Racing Sports) and these bikes have the 125 cc engine block. Yamaha says SS & RS have 26 improved features to make them dynamic and best performing bikes in their class. Gladiator Type SS / RS was also launched in India by the end of February 2008.

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Indian consumers got the feel of the superbikes mainly from the movie Dhoom (thanks to John Abraham’s Hayabusa) and after that they’ve been witnessing a regular growth in both, the sales and options (superbikes) available in India. Sources in the industry confirm that almost 600 superbikes are imported every year, which includes those imported by the company and those that come from indirect routes.

Apart from growing in the domestic market, Yamaha is also looking to scale up its exports.

“They are very hopeful of increasing exports from India. In 2009 and so far in 2010, they have received good response and orders from the overseas markets. they export Gladiator Type SS, FZ16, YZF-R15, Crux, Enticer, Alba, G5 to countries like Colombia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Kenya, Bangladesh, Philippines. They definitely look forward to increase their presence in the overseas market and grow in terms of exports”.

Yamaha plans to capture larger market share in India. It is aiming for a 20% share in the Indian bike segment especially in deluxe and premium range products. “They have been receiving an overwhelming response for their premium and deluxe segment models. They have clocked a robust performance so far and should achieve a market share of 20% in the deluxe and premium segments.

Currently Yamaha has 3.5% market share in India but the sales are picking up very fast and the company foresees a robust growth in coming years. By end of 2012, it intends to have at least 10-12% market share in the country. “They expect to grow 40% in 2010 and 30% in 2011. Their main growth will be from the FZ series.

Premium products like YZF-R15 and FZ-15 continue to showcase strong demand and robust sales. “In the deluxe segment, they have succeeded in garnering a market share of 12%.

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

Good quality

Long life engine

High mileage

Unique product offering

Technology

Style

Brand

WEAKNESS

Wrong focus segment

Emphasis on value for money

Wrong trend

OPPURTUNITY

Innovation

Increased product quality

Product for rural areas

Big market (domestically & globaly)

THREAT

Competition

Strength

Yamaha has good quality motor bikes. Their bikes engine are long lasting and fuel efficients. They uses Japanese technology for their products. They offers unique products to market. They have different styles of product and they are known for their brand image in motor biking industry.

Weakness

They were previously focus on wrong segments. They emphasis on manufacturing value for money products. The trend on focusing on rural industry was wrong.

Opportunity

They have innovated opportunity to launch their new products. They have increased quality products like R15 and FZ16. They have opportunity to rule for urban as well as rural areas. They have big market opportunity domestic and internationaly.

Threat

Yamaha have lots of threat from their competition. Yamaha is wary of competition from the well entrenched players but hopes to counter the competition through its unique product offering.

The Seven P’s of Marketing

The basic Four P’s of Marketing

Product

This is the most important thing in the mix, the physical product or the service that the entity is offering for sale to the public. We will need to market this to the customers by telling them the unique features and benefits the product has to offer as Yamaha did most of the time when its value for money they emphasis on that, when its about looks and image they shows that as well.

Price

This is the price or amount that the customer needs to giveaway in exchange of the product or service we are offering. Marketing strategy will need to ensure that people will get the perceived value as greater than the price they will need to giveaway. Yamaha give the price of normal bikes and gave the looks of superbikes.

Placement

Placement or distribution, we will need to spell out where the product or service is available. This may either be online or offline, we will need to inform the public where the products may be available. Yamaha places their products in showrooms as well their full descriptive images online.

Promotion

We will need to promote the product or service whether online of offline. Online marketing makes it cheaper to conduct promotions and reach as many people as possible. Yamaha mostly uses brand ambassadors for the products and also promotes in motoracing.

The next three P’s

People

In order for any marketing activity to be effective, to will need to train and motivate the people to do their job. The people that delivers the product or service and those that come in between the customer and the manufacturer needs to know their job for the strategy to work. People may also refer to the customers who will need to buy our products, they are very important to be considered in the development of our marketing strategy. Yamaha trained their people on routine intervals so they can get the best out of them.

Process

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important roles of marketing. If we can follow the process of delivering high quality service or products to the customers, Our marketing efforts will never be wasted. As Yamaha did uses the process and deliver the right product on right time.

Physical evidence

Online, it is difficult for the customer to know how the product is going to benefit them. Thus, we will need to create an element by which the customer will be able to feel, taste and smell the product or experience the service. We can do reports and articles that will excite the customers about the product and the service. Yamaha shows the physical evidence of their products in commercials, movies and road shows.

Conclusions

In conclusion, the success of Yamaha is inseparable with the scientific business strategy. The business strategy is a general concept. It includes two indispensable elements called competitive strategy and marketing strategies as well as the concept of the business strategy. The strategic concept of Yamaha is to take the demand-side strategy. Yamaha subdivides the whole market into several objective markets according to the researches about the partialities of different individuals. And then different types of motor bikes are put into the market aimed at attracting different consumer groups. The competitive strategy of Yamaha is to improve the innovative ability to win the competitive advantage. Strong technological innovation ability makes Yamaha stand in the most forward position of motor bikes industry all the time, and characterized this brand by a special vitality. And the marketing mix of Yamaha is to use the integrated marketing strategy including product, price, promotion and place. It values the construction of a brand, the orientation of its products and pays a lot of attention to technology improvement. It increases the sales through sensitive advertisement, presentation to the celebrities and large-scale entertainment.  

Expectations from the Course Module:

When I started this assignment, I had a perception that marketing is identical to sales. Being from commerce back round I also thought that marketing is conflicting to financial studies. However now I can analyze that marketing is a social science.

Through the interactive lectures I have learnt that marketing brings together all the elements of management together, namely finance, operations and human resource management.

Overall the course module has geared me up as a person who now has managerial skills in all types of verticals.

Learning Outcome:

I would like to start my learning outcomes from the same fact that being from the Commerce background and always took Marketing as a very spendthrift department and always thought they are trying to put up their Budgets and Expenditures very high and would not allow them to get around to utilize the Budget as they wished or planned. I was always critical of the plans of the Marketing team in the company where I work and would always argue and win back as much pounds as I could to cut on their lucrative Budgetary proposals.

But after the Tutor brought in the various Marketing concepts like “Situation Analysis”, “Branding”, “Segmentation”, “Marketing Mix”, etc., were very clear.

The situational analysis taught me how to use the tools of SWOT, PESTLE, the five competitive forces of Michael Porter.

That the objectives of an organization or business should be realistic came to light through the learning of the SMART theory of goal setting. I understood that how the goal of a business or company are aligned at every level of business and that their vision and mission are clear..

The tactics part actually has presented before me the entire marketing mix process. It has taught me how the 7P’s of marketing are useful across an organisation or a product or service. The 7p’s have taught me how to integrate different methods in management to analyze the operational effectiveness of a business.

Personal Experience:

My experience as a student in this subject has been great one and has given me a great learning for imparting at my place of business. The concepts that have been taught in the class by the tutor, I am convinced that I can have great success in the marketing field now. As prior to this course module I had always shied off from marketing plans or topics. This is how I have been able to put my learning experience into the learning about Yamaha.