MUZAMMIL AMEEN

56842
Harley-Davidson Case Report
Submitted to Sir Muhammad Ahmed Butt
Strategic Brand Management

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1- Title

2- Table of Content

3- Acknowledgement

4- Introduction

5- History

6- SWOT Analysis

7- Brand Strategy

8- Conclusion

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INTRODUCCTION

Harley-Davidson motorcycles are as much legend as product. The company enjoys

intensely allegiant customers and proximately as staunch employees. The company
celebrated its centennial year in 2001, which in itself was nothing short of a miracle
given all of the opportunities that the company had to go out of business. The company
fell on arduous times in the early 1980s and even flirted with bankruptcy. Management
did a turnaround in the mid-1980s, however, resulting in a financially sound public
company today. One of the areas of turnaround was in relying on employees to avail
keep the company afloat - not in financial matters directly, but rather in ascertaining that
Harley return to its standard and reputation for quality. Quality had suffered so in the
1960s and 1970s that the prevalent saying about Harley-Davidson motorcycles was that
a five-mile trip consisted of riding for one and pushing for four. Harley-Davidson has
now returned to its former days of quality, integrating production efficiency along the
way. It is the only surviving domestic motorcycle engenderer since Indian, its primary
competition, closed in the early 1950s. It controls 54 percent of the domestic Market in
heftily ponderous motorcycles, and devoted owners across the country sustain active
owners clubs and hold weekend rallies. In the mid- to tardy 1990s, Harley-Davidson's
management turned its attention to internal efficiency. Though it had made great gains
in that area, individual sites still operated more than only independently from the
company holistically. Site independence was an issue that had been inspirited for years,
providing motivation for the employees and management personnel of each site to
comport entrepreneurially rather than faceless entities of the more sizably voluminous
organization. The downside of that approach by the 1990s was that each site had
developed “different methods for handling procurement, including the acquisition and/or
development of different information systems for Purchasing" (Sole, Cotteleer and
Austin, 2003; p. 3).Harley-Davidson was a tardy ingression into Just-In-Time (JIT)
manufacturing, which requires that the organization hold little inventory either in
culminated products or in component components. This tardy ingression sanctioned
Harley-Davidson to eschew many of the mistakes that other companies made in earlier
years (Kelley, 1999), but did not preclude the possibility of making incipient mistakes of
its own. Through much of the 1990s, Harley-Davidson used standard software
packages easily customizable while still retaining facility to import and export directly
with other packages (Hunter, 1996). This sanctioned it to interface facilely with all
suppliers without much regard for the systems utilized by diverse suppliers. In 1998,
one author reported that Harley-Davidson, then a $1.8 billion company, was making its
most astronomically immense technology commitment to date. That year’s IT budget
and capital spending was "$50 million - scarcely more than 2 percent of revenue and
above average in the manufacturing sector. More than a moiety of that budget is
dedicated to incipient development, funding an IP-predicated corporate network, a data

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warehouse project, and standardizing on Microsoft desktop and server software"
(Caldwell, 1998; p. 63).Harley made design drawings available to suppliers,
efficaciously offering them partnership in the business. "These steps open Harley-
Davidson's suppliers to collaborative relationships that it hopes will cut product
development time and manufacturing costs by $40

HISTORY

Harley Davidson has been in business since 1903. According to the website, “four
puerile men experimented with internal combustion in a minute wooden shed. Not only
does the shed not burn, but the motorcycle they build goes on to accommodate for over
100,000 miles” (Harley Davidson, n.d., 1). In 1901, William S. Harley draws a blueprint
of a motor to fit a bicycle. Later, he is joined by Arthur Davidson and they build the first
Harley Davidson motorcycle.
In the pantheon of puissant American brands, most, like
Coca-Cola, Tide, McDonald's, Levi's and Nike, have
reached icon status through long-term, high-overtones
campaigns marked by a consistent trumpeting of a
simple message. Theirs is a story of deep pockets and
relentless promotion.
Harley Davidson uses customer surveys and motorcycle rallies to conduct their
marketing research. This research has influenced Harley to commence to manufacture
motorcycles for women. Women riding motorcycles has increase 10% since 1987. On
their website, Harley has a separate web page for women riders. On this page, topics
include why women ride, learning to ride, women riders making headlines, and the
history of female riders

Sales have grown at a compound annual rate of 16.2 percent since 1987, with profits up
even more, soaring at a commensurable rate of 29.2 percent. Last year, the company
reported net income of $166 million on sales of $1.53 billion. To get to those numbers, it
moved a plethora of metal, posting ecumenical sales of 118,000 sizably voluminous
bikes -- those with engines of 650 cubic centimeters or more -- up from 55,000 in 1989.
This year, the company plans to sell 130,000.

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Rather than quietly observe this outlandish cultural phenomenon, Harley executives
publicly boast about it. In the 1996 annual report, Mr. Teerlink indicted: "Most people
can't understand what would drive someone to profess his or her adhesion for our brand
by tattooing our logo onto his or her body -- or heart. My fellow employees and I
understand thoroughly. We additionally understand very pellucidly that this
indescribable ardency is an astronomically immense part of what has driven and will
perpetuate to drive our magnification."

SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

 Net income of 2003 was $760mn; it’s more than 30% as compared to the
antecedent year 2002.
 The standard and performance segments of Harley Davidson make up 70% of
the European cumbersomely hefty weight motorcycle market
 Harley-Davidson operates in two segments: Harley-Davidson motorcycles &
cognate products and HDFS (Harley-Davidson Financial Accommodations).
 Harley-Davidson is the only major American heavyweight motorcycle
manufacturer.
 Strong brand denomination.
 The HOG (Harley Owners Group), which have a 7, 50,000 members worldwide is
the industry’s most immensely colossal company sponsored motorcycle
enthusiast organization.
 Buell Riders Adventure Group (GASCONADE) was additionally composed recent

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  Customization of the bikes, this is Harley-Davidson’s major revenue maker.
 Harley-Davidson has a good marketing division and it’s divided as dealer
promotions, customer events, magazine and direct-mail advertising, and public
cognations.

WEAKNESS

 High price
 Harley-Davidson has quandaries in gaining more market share in some
European countries (That’s one of the main markets for Heavyweight
motorcycles outside U.S).
 They didn’t yet start its sales in India, one of the most astronomically immense
markets.
 Required engenderment is not met, analyzing the future of Heavyweight
motorcycle market

OPPORTUNITIES

 The European demand for Harley Davidson is the highest in the international
market and represents the single most immensely colossal motorcycle market in
the world.
 Women and younger riders are incrementing becoming fascinated with bikes
 The international heftily ponderous weight market is growing and is now more
immensely colossal than the U. S. heavyweight market
 Market share incrementing in Europe and Asia for the last two years
 Increasing demand in US markets for bikes
 Customers value quality components

THREAT

 Harleys perpetual capacity restraints caused a shortage supply and a loss in

domestic market share in recent years
 Harley’s average buying age is 42 years old and incrementing
 The European Union’s motorcycles noise standards are more stringent than
those of Environmental Bulwark Agencies in the U.S and incremented
environmental stand

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  Some competitors of Harley Davidson have more astronomically immense
financial and marketing resources and they are more diversified
 Environmental bulwark laws
Buell division needs to perpetuate to engender a quality motorcycle under Harley’s
brand denomination.

Brand Strategy

Harley-Davidson has strong brand placement in the market and furthermore, I am going
to select its model called STREET ROD and strategizing it.

Harley-Davidson STREET ROD

Styling Lead Chetan

Shedjale emphasized that this was the intent from the start. The seed was planted in
2013 with his Street 750-based design concept called RDX 800. Shedjale's fundamental
notion was to make the Street 750 into an “Urban Bulldog.” In the following years,
Harley-Davidson would embark on marketing meetings, surveys, and research into the
global marketplace, and what it came back with was what riders have been asking for
for years: a sport standard. Turns out, Shedjale's bike would be a good starting point.

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Brand Resonance Model:

Salience is deep and customers are well cognizant of the brand.

Performance, the Street ROD is in to the market and customers nowadays prefer it
over other models especially female riders and girls who are obsessed with Harley
Davidson and bike riding.
Imagery is well defined as the customers are cognizant of the brand and this model that
is being verbalized about in the report.
Judgment is positive and people are so affixed with their bikes than even a human. So
the Feelings towards their ride are so positive and vigorous.
Resonance, the brand itself a thing to be staunch of. Qualities and features like
STREET ROD has unique features of its kind cannot found in other competing bikes

STRATEGY RECOMMENDATION

MARKET PENETRATION
Get some more market share from the existing market, like U.S, U.K, and Japan etc
through more marketing techniques like advertising. Harley-Davidson has a good

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brand name so it’s easy for them to eat up the competitor market share if they can
provide some more customer benefit
Competition is high in this segment mostly in U.S so market penetration can be a good
choice for the company
Expand the HOG (Harley Owners Group) to Asian countries, if the company can provide
the customer satisfaction that they are providing to the U.S customers to the Asian
customers they can increase the sale

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
Younger generation and female are now coming to this segments expand the motor
cycle segments to younger generation and females.
In Europe they can increase or expand the Buell’s market share by introducing
new motorcycles.

Diversification
Bring in new vehicles to new Markets like china, but it’s also a costly decision.

CONCLUSION

Theirs is a story of deep pockets and relentless promotion. Infrequently, however, a

brand emerges without the panoply of wall-to-wall advertising and in-your-face
marketing. Instead, apperception emanates from a quiet, behind-the-scenes effort to
sell a product more directly on its merits, in its own time and in its own way. And the
brand’s idiosyncratic path to prosperity becomes an affluent field for marketing gurus
and academics to mine, offering edifications not only for other offbeat efforts but also for
those seeking to better the odds of mainstream campaigns. Perhaps no product
exemplifies this non-traditional route to brand excellence more than America’s
freewheeling symbol of the road, the Harley-Davidson motorcycle. Twice at the brink of
bankruptcy since the 1960’s, the Harley-Davidson Motor Company and its parent,
Harley-Davidson Inc., have undergone a stunning metamorphosis, fueling a caliber of
injective authorization that is the goal of corporate chieftains everywhere. The
transmutation has not only enhanced Harley’s standing in the highly competitive and
lucrative market for astronomically immense motorcycles, where it had been pummeled
for years by waves of truculent Japanese imports, but it has also elongated the brand’s
reach to aforetime untapped businesses. Having largely reinvented itself, as both a
company and a brand, the Milwaukee-based motorcycle maker is now reaping the
benefits of a hip, with-it image. What kept Harley going in its most tenebrous days, and
what is driving it now in high gear, is the plain fact that the motorcycle it makes is not
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just a product but rather the centerpiece of lifestyle? The Harley management team, in
fact, has a visceral connection to the brand and to its customers that is arduous to
match in most corporate boardrooms. The senior executives own the motorcycles and
ride with their customers. Indeed, they are customers, peregrinating to Harley rallies
and taking their places on the same waiting lists to get incipient bikes. As an American
icon, Harley has come to denote liberation, rugged individualism, exhilaration and a
sense of “bad boy revolt.” That kind of ardency explains how Harley has been able to
cross so many socioeconomic boundaries. Its owners are buying much more than a
mode of conveyance. What bonds them to the bikes and ultimately to each other, at
rallies and other events is a mutual appreciation of the look, feel and sound of the
machines

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