A public Limited company, Harley Davidson was originally founded in 1903. It is an American company that manufactures motor cycles. It is commonly known as HD or simply Harley in America. The reason why the company stands out to be one of the tycoons in motor cycle production is because it was successfully able to thrive in the periods of the ‘great depression’ and was able to compete against the Japanese manufacturers. As calculated in 2011, the annual revenue of the company was$5.31 Billion, with more than 6000 employees working for the company. The upcoming paragraphs will give you a brief analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the company.
Strengths
The company was calculated to have an overall majority in controlling the market. By 2011, the company had control of more than 70% of the market of motorcycles, and specifically heavy bikes.
Secondly, Harley-Davidson has a dual source of income, one from manufacturing motorcycles and the other, from providing financial service. The business is sort of diversified, and conglomerate in nature of operation because it operates in two entirely different industries.
The company is on excellent business terms with the supplier, because of which, the raw materials put utilized are of very high quality and a lower cost, giving the company an additional benefit.
Weaknesses
Although the company is quite well known for its high quality, quite fashionable and fast motor bikes, its foremost weakness becomes the price charged for one complete unit. In comparison to other motor bike manufacturers, Harley’s charge a rather higher price.
Although, the company stands out in US, it is constantly reported to have been losing the market control in Europe. As predicted for the future, there will be a decrease in the demand for the heavy bikes, because of which, the company is experiencing a constant mismatch of demand and supply, therefore disturbing the entire process. Also, the international position and marketing campaign is not very effective to attract foreign customers.
Opportunities
As compared to the whole world, the demand for Harley Motorbikes is found to be most in Europe, therefore, the first chance and opportunity for expansion would undoubtedly be the European Union. Additionally, virgin motorcycles markets in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, etc. can be jackpots for the company sales.
Threats
Being a giant in an industry automatically means that you are the target to most threats. This is the case for Harley-Davidson. The people now tend to buy themselves means of travel that are cheap, economical and not very pompous. None of the aspects mentioned above are present in the company’s products. This means, that in the future, the company would be left with a very narrow target market.
Many small businesses are already into the automobile industry, and the high price of HD is a big opportunity for them to invade the market, because the cheaper the goods are, the more attracted the people become towards that business. Therefore, Harley might have to reconsider its price, which, so far is its biggest strength and the weakness too.
Reference:
http://www.wikiswot.com/SWOT/4_/Harley_Davidson.html
http://www.termpaperwarehouse.com/essay-on/Harley-Davidson-Swot-Analysis/46391
http://www.freeswotanalysis.com/automobile/112-harley-davidson.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harley-Davidson
http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Content/Pages/home.html