A STUDY ON CUSTOMER SATISFACTION TOWARDS HONDA BIKES IN

HONDA ROCKFORT, TRICHY

CHAPTER – I

1.1 INTRODUCTION

The prosperity of every business unit depends upon the efficiency of

marketing. Marketing occupies an important position in the organization of a business
unit. When the marketing functions are not fruitfully carried out, it will affect the
existence of an organisation. All activities which are involved in the process of
transferring of goods from the place of its origin to the ultimate consumers come under
the purview of marketing.

The marketing strategy is a consistent, appropriate and feasible set of

principles through which particular company captures its customers and achieve profit
objectives in a competitive environment. The automobile industry designs, develops,
manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most
important economic sectors in respect of revenue. The competitive nature of the
automobile industry has prompted the companies to take up new and innovative
market strategies towards the competition. The automobile industry in India has
witnessed a rapid growth over the last couple of decades and in recent years it has also
captured the attention of the whole world with some innovative products. It includes
manufacturing of cars, two-wheelers like motorcycles, scooters, bikes, passenger cars,
trucks, tractors, defence vehicles and buses. It can be divided into car manufacturing,
heavy vehicle manufacturing and two-wheeler manufacturing. It analyses the factors
that lead to the preference of a particular brand by the customers.

This study will be useful for the organization to understand the reasons for the
preference of the Honda bikes. High satisfaction delights and creates an emotional
feeling with the brand. As a result, one can have high customer loyalty. Senior
managers believe that a very satisfied or delighted customer is more worthy and they
are the biggest assets to an organisation.

The two wheeler industry has been going steadily over the years all over the
world. India is not an exception for that. Today India is the second largest
manufactures of two wheelers in the world. It stands next only to Japan and China in
terms of number of two wheelers produced and sold. Until 1990 geared scooters
dominated the two wheelers market so much so that their sales equalled the combined
sales of Motor cycles and Mopeds. Today the customer preferences have shifted from
geared scooters to motorcycles and also to an extent to the premium end scooters.
With rising fuel cost and more recently stringent emission norms imposed by the
government, there is a distinct consumer preference for high efficiency. The Honda
story is the story of one man, Soichiro Honda, and his unparalleled achievement of
bringing motor cycles to the masses. Soichiro Honda was a racer, a businessman, and a
manufacturer. But most of all he was a dreamer. He dreamed of a better way of
making piston rings, founded a small company, and began production. He dreamed of
giving people everywhere an economical form of transportation, and began producing
small motorcycles, including one built in 1949 called the D-Type Dream. He also
loved racing too. So his company built bigger and faster machines, two, four, five and
six-cylinder race bikes and won the Isle of Man. Honda Motor Company is by far the
world's biggest motorcycle maker. Honda's first motorcycle was born out of necessity
in immediate post World War II Japan, where public transportation was desperately
overcrowded and gasoline severely restricted. Unique practices create unique
organizations.

Honda was established upon the fundamental belief in the value of each
individual. Based on our philosophy, we respect independent spirit and freedom,
equality and mutual trust of human beings who work for or come in contact with our
company. As such our management policies focus on developing and enhancing the
essential characteristics that every individual possesses - capacity to think, reason, and
most importantly - the ability to dream. Being the largest producer of 2-wheelers and
one of the most admired companies in the world definitely thrills us. But what thrills
our associates most is the 'Joy of Creating', one of our missions at Honda, which
promotes working for our own happiness. If you have a passion for 2-wheelers and
possess a challenging spirit, your abilities are more important to us rather than which
university you passed from.

India will be the biggest global market for Honda's two-wheeler business by
2015 before eventually accounting for 30 per cent of its overall market share. At
present, this is 13 per cent but the company is going flat out with new product
launches as part of an aggressive growth strategy. The 110cc Dream Yuga motorcycle,
unveiled at the Auto Expo here on Thursday, will roll out this year for the mass
market, a segment in which Honda's former partner, the Hero group, rules the roost
with the Splendour and Passion brands.

Mass market pricing

The Yuga is expected to be priced competitively at around Rs 45,000, which could

give the company the much needed momentum in its motorcycle business. The other
launches included a new 110cc Dio scooter as well as the larger CBR150R and 250R
bikes. Officials said Honda R&D would now work closely with the Manesar
operations of HMSI (Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India), which would facilitate
faster product launches in the coming years. In addition, the company will increase the
number of its zonal offices and training centres keeping in mind the growing demand
from smaller towns and the need to be closer to this critical buyer base. Clearly, Honda
is determined to make up the lost numbers ceded to the Hero group, which works out
to over five million units annually. The revised strategy will call for an aggressive play
in the pricing segment while offering top quality products.

Global share

India will, in the process, take over from Indonesia and Vietnam as Honda's
biggest two-wheeler market over the next five years. As for the bigger goal of 30 per
cent share in its global business, Honda's annual two-wheeler volumes here would
have to be in the region of 10 million units annually. Observers believe this could
become a reality by 2020. At present, over four million units are in place from its three
units in Manesar (the largest with 1.6 million), the recently commissioned Rajasthan
plant and the newly identified site in Karnataka (with capacities of 1.2 million units
each). The balance six million bikes and scooters, in that case, will have to be
generated from new facilities even as reports are already doing the rounds that Honda
is looking at options in the western and southern regions post-2014.

1.2 INDUSTRY PROFILE

Honda has been the world’s largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, as well as the
world’s largest manufacturer of internal combustion engines measured by volume,
producing more than 14 million internal combustion engines each year. Honda became
the second-largest Japanese automobile manufacturer in 2001. Honda was the eighth
largest automobile manufacturer in the world behind General Motors, Volkswagen
Group, Toyota, Hyundai Motor Group, Ford, Nissan, and PSA Peugeot Citroën in
2011. Honda was the first Japanese automobile manufacturer to release a dedicated
luxury brand, Acura, in 1986. Aside from their core automobile and motorcycle
businesses, Honda also manufactures garden equipment, marine engines, personal
watercraft and power generators, and other products. Since 1986, Honda has been
involved with artificial intelligence/robotics research and released their ASIMO robot
in 2000. They have also ventured into aerospace with the establishment of GE Honda
Aero Engines in 2004 and the Honda HA-420 HondaJet, which began production in
2012. Honda has three joint-ventures in China (Honda China, Dongfeng Honda, and
Guangqi Honda).

AUTOMOBILE INDUSTRY IN INDIA

In India, the Automobile industry is one of the largest in the world and is one of the
fastest growing globally. India manufactures over 17.5 million vehicles including 2
wheeler and 4 wheeler and exports about 2.33 million every year. It is the world's
second largest manufacturer of motorcycles, with annual sales of exceeding Rs 8.5
million in 2009. India's passenger car and commercial vehicle manufacturing industry
is the seventh largest in the world, with an annual production of more than 3.7 million
units in 2010 The Indian Automobile Industry is manufacturing over 11 million
vehicles and exporting about 1.5 million every year. The dominant products of the
industry are two wheelers with a market share of over 75% and passenger cars with a
market share of about 16%. Commercial vehicles and three wheelers share about 9%
of the market between them. About 91% of the vehicles sold are used by households
and only about 9% for commercial purposes. The industry has attained a turnover of
more than USD 35 billion and provides direct and indirect employment to over 13
million people

HISTORY OF HONDA

From a young age, Honda's founder, Soichiro Honda (November 17, 1906 – August 5,
1991) had a great interest in automobiles. He worked as a mechanic at a Japanese
tuning shop, Art Shokai, where he tuned cars and entered them in races. A self-taught
engineer, he later worked on a piston design which he hoped to sell to Toyota. The
first drafts of his design were rejected, and Soichiro worked painstakingly to perfect
the design, even going back to school and pawning his wife's jewelry for collateral.
Eventually, he won a contract with Toyota and built a factory to construct pistons for
them, which was destroyed in an earthquake. Due to a gasoline shortage during World
War II, Honda was unable to use his car, and his novel idea of attaching a small engine
to his bicycle attracted much curiosity. He then established the Honda Technical
Research Institute in Hamamatsu, Japan, to develop and produce small 2-cycle
motorbike engines. Calling upon 18,000 bicycle shop owners across Japan to take part
in revitalizing a nation torn apart by war, Soichiro received enough capital to engineer
his first motorcycle, the Honda Cub. This marked the beginning of Honda Motor
Company, which would grow a short time later to be the world's largest manufacturer
of motorcycles by 1964.

The first production automobile from Honda was the T360 mini pick-up truck, which
went on sale in August 1963. Powered by a small 356 cc straight-4 gasoline engine, it
was classified under the cheaper Kei car tax bracket The first production car from
Honda was the S500 sports car, which followed the T360 into production in October
1963. Its chain driven rear wheels point to Honda's motorcycle origin.

MODELS

BIKE

CBR250R

CBF Stunner

Dazzler

Unicorn

Shine
CB Twister

SCOOTER

Activa (old)

Activa (new)

Aviator DLX

Dio

CARS

Honda city

Honda Accord

Honda Civic

Honda Jazz

Honda Brio

PROFILE

Type : Public company

Industry : Automotive Aviation

Founded : 24 September 1948

Founder(s) : Soichiro Honda Takeo Fujisawa

Headquarters : Minato, Tokyo, Japan

Area served : Worldwide

Key people : Takanobu Ito (President, CEO, & Representative Director)

Products : Automobiles, Motorcycles, Scooters, ATVs, Electrical

generators, Water pumps, Lawn and Garden equipment, Tillers,
Outboard motors, Robotics, Jets, Jet engines, Thin-film solar
cells
Website : world.honda.com

1.3 COMPANY PROFILE

 CHAPTER – II

REVIEW OF LITERATURE

Schneider (1985, 1990) it defines climate as the shared perceptions of

organizational members concerning practices. Behaviors and procedures are rewarded
and supported in the workplace. Others have viewed it as a set of concepts to
understand the context of the organization, representing the norms, attitudes, feelings
and behaviors' prevalent at the workplace (Litwin & Stringer, 1968;Pugh & Payne,
1976; Schneider & Bartlett, 1968, 1970; Denison, 1996).

Rashid and Ahsan, (1997) this paper argues that ethics can play vital role in
reducing the attitudinal differences between the personnel manager and employees on
the issue of maintaining privacy of employee information. The importance of ethics in
personnel management has received inadequate Attention in the previous research.
The need for employee information for decision making and its disclosures within and
outside the organization are examined. Ahsan, (1997) the practice of giving value to
Human Resource is not new. The concept can be traced back to the early days of
slavery. But with the Abolition of slavery the practice of valuing Human Resources
have been discontinued. Recently, behavioral scientist and financial specialists have
questioned the accounting practice Of not including value of Human Resource. It is
one of the most important resources of an Organization and the future of an
organization depends to a large extent on systematic.
 CHAPTER - III
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1 INTRODUCTION

It is well known fact that the most important step in marketing research process is to
define the problem. Choose for investigation because a problem well defined is half
solved. That was the reason that at most care was taken while defining various
parameters of the problem. After giving through brain storming session, objectives
were selected and the set on the base of these objectives. A questionnaire was designed
major emphasis of which was gathering new ideas or insight so as to determine and
bind out solution to the problems.

RESEARCH DESIGN

A research design is considered as the framework or plan for a study that guides as
well as helps the data collection and analysis of data. Present study is an analytical and
descriptive in nature and based on empirical study. The data was collected from both
primary and secondary sources. The primary source of data is respondents concerned
and collected by using a predefined questionnaire. The secondary sources include
books, articles, periodicals, newspapers, various reports, websites etc

RESEARCH APPROACH

The research approach was used survey method which is a widely used method for
data collection and best suited for analytical and descriptive type of research survey
includes research instrument like questionnaire which can be structured and
unstructured. Target population is well identified and various methods like personal
interviews and telephone interviews are employed.
SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The study focuses on customer satisfaction toward the Honda bikes. It includes
availability level of products, quality of the products, customer’s expectations, and
customer satisfaction towards the customers if any at Honda. When viewing the
industrial sector one can see that all the corporate houses focusing on retaining the
customers without compromising the organizational objectives, ethics and values.
Customers are individuals and the organizations have to make each and every
customer feel that they are highly compassionate to them. Hence, customer
relationship management is having a wide scope in modern world.

NEED FOR THE STUDY

Customer satisfaction provides an indication of how successful the organization is

providing products and/or services to the market place. Organizations need to retain
existing customers while targeting noncustomers. So, to retain the customers for
longer time the marketer has to know the customer satisfaction levels. Thus, this study
is conducted to know the satisfaction levels of customers of Honda bikes.

SCOPE OF THE STUDY:

The scope is confirmed only to examine the “Customer Satisfaction “with reference to
Honda bikes” and to find possible remedies to counteract their competition

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The important task of a buying preference is to get more number of consumers for the
business and retaining them forever by providing all support and care to him. Serving
the customer not stops with caring but the success comes when they are delighted by
the service. It requires enormous amount to effort to create one customer, but for a
customer the simple reason is enough to switch over the competitor. Hence the
customer care becomes very important in selling Honda bikes. If the customers are
treated properly then he will like to do business as remain and he will never turn
towards the competitors.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Today’s consumer markets are too competitive. For maximizing the profit and
widening the market share, the companies use various efforts for attaining their
objectives. There also exist strong consumer advocacy movements all over the world.
Most of the companies try to convert potential customer into a regular customer. For
this, they try to provide maximum benefits and convenience to the customers through
the excellent utilization of resource. The transformation of a potential customer into a
regular customer is not an easy task. They have to blend various marketing mixes in
different ways.

OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

To analyze the customer satisfaction.

To analyze the customer preference.

To analyze after sales services of bikes.

To study the behavioral factors of consumers in motor bikes.

To suggest various factors to improve sales

DATA SOURCE

The data was collected from both primary and secondary sources. Present study is an
analytical and descriptive in nature and based on empirical study.

Primary data

Primary data is collected from the customers of Honda motors through Questionnaire

Secondary data

Secondary data is collected from the company records publications of Journals,

Newspapers, books, articles, various reports, college library and Websites etc.

SAMPLING UNIT

It gives the target population that will be sampled. This research was carried in
Customers of Honda bikes Trichy (Rockfort Honda). These were 100 respondents.
Sample size

100 respondents of Rockfort Honda, Trichy District were surveyed that time period
based on convenience sampling from different segments of people. The sample
constitutes of Business men, Employees, Professionals, Students etc. Questionnaires
were used to get feedback from target sample.

Sampling method

A sample method was used that Convenience sampling

STATISTICAL TOOLS USED

After the completion of data the collected data is tabulated and analyzed and the
relationship between different variables have been estimated with the help of Simple
percentage method, weighted average and Likert’s scale technique

DATA COMPLETION AND ANALYSIS

After the data has been collected, it was tabulated and findings of the project were
presented followed by analysis and interpretation to reach certain conclusions.

LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY

Research work was carried out in one District of Tamil Nadu only the finding may not
be applicable to the other parts of the country because of social and cultural
differences.

The sample was collected using connivance-sampling techniques. As such result may
not give an exact representation of the population.

Shortage of time is also reason for incomprehensiveness.

The views of the people are biased therefore it doesn’t reflect true picture.