1) Harley’s exit from India: From the eye of a teenager.

Keywords:

● Harley Davidson
● Service
● Dealer
● Maintenance
● Competitors

2) Harley Davidson is basically an American motorcycle manufacturer which was founded in

early 1903. Harley Davidson bikes are known for its luxury. In 2007 there was an agreement
between India and America to import bikes from America and exports mangoes to America
from India. By this way Davidson started its business in India. By exporting mangoes to
America, India did not really earn any sort of profit but Harley captured the business in India
and at one point of time Harley Davidson was the most selling bikes in India.
I chose to do a case study on this topic because I am very much interested about bikes and
my passion is to go for a long ride and explore new places. I very much became a fan of
Harley Davidson when I was small and tourists across the world used to come to my state
Sikkim for touring as my state is very well known and famous for tourist destination. Those
thundering noise of Harley Davidson really made me a great fan of it and those bikers with
proper biking suits really attracted and motivated me to develop my passion on ridings.
It is very sad to know that the company has been removed from India due to some reasons,
but now people would not really prefer to buy an Harley because the owner may face
various difficulties after owing a bike as there is no company in India.
Harley Davidson had closed its company after facing a huge loss in Indian market. According
to the facts, only 25000 motorcycle were sold in India from 2007-2020 which is really a bad
move. Earlier the import tax was 100% and after various discussions , government decided
to reduce import tax to 50% . Still , Harley could not catch up which is a very bad sign for
Davidson fans . People in India are mostly middle class people and they don’t deserve to get
those expensive bikes. The other fact is that Davidson also could not compete with other
Indian branded bikes like Royal Enfield and Hero Honda which were way cheaper than
Harley Davidson and people in India chose to get a quality bike under a low budget amount.
After the exit of Davidson from India, there is a huge profit for those people who already
owe a Davidson bikes because supply of a bike decreases and demand increases. In this
situation, people get a good valuation for their bikes.

3) We clearly gave a brief description about Harley Davidson in the above paragraph and we
being a citizen of India we should learn a big lesson from Harley Davidson especially for
those who are really into business. In India, we all know that brand for any products matters
a lot. People purchase any products referring to its brand and goodwill and it is also very
necessary to build brand , reputation of any products so that the customers can freely rely
and trust upon the product but being a producers we should not only focus on brand and
keep prices of the certain product very high because a rational customer wants a quality
product at a reasonable budget. From the above case of Harley Davidson, we clearly came to
know that brand always does not matters. Apart from brand and goodwill producers need to
keep check on budget, quality, and comfort of a product. It is also very important to select a
place or a location to sell the desired product. According to me, Harley Davidson selected a
wrong location for selling their bikes as India is a vast country and mostly, we tend to see
middle class people in India. As India is a under developed country and culture of different
states vary and matters a lot and we cannot compare the selling of bikes in India and
America as we all know that America is one of the powerful and developed country. So, the
main reason for failure of Harley is also because they tend to choose the wrong location for
their business. Not only Harley, we have many examples in front of us like Starbucks in India
never worked because it is not made for all the citizens of India as 80% of India’s population
are under poverty line. To earn a profit in business, producers needs to satisfy all the section
of population. Business cannot earn profit by selecting a particular class of people from
society which Harley Davidson did in India. Davidson only focused on Upper class people as
their customers and in India upper class people seems to be really less in numbers.
Meanwhile, other Indian brands like Royal Enfield, Hero Honda, Bajaj are doing really well in
their business because they never failed to satisfy their customers and their products are
affordable by mostly 90% of population in India. Why would a rational consumer spend 15
lakhs on Davidson while he is getting a quality and comfortable bike around 1 lakh? So,
pricing of any product matters a lot. Maintenance also plays a great role in buys cars or bike
because once we owe something we have to keep maintaining it regularly in order to last
long and if the maintenance charge is too high, cutometers really don’t prefer to buy those
bikes . The same case was for Davidson bikes as their maintenance charge was too high and
people in India never afforded to do so.
The strength of Harley was its weakness too because most of the people who go for rides
are young aged people and today’s younger generation are not really interested in Cruise
bike instead they really like to travel in a racing bikes. Harley is meant to be ridden long and
a straight roads where there is no disturbance at all but in India we do not have a proper
road or structure where Harley could be ridden as we know that most of our cities have a
huge traffic . People in India usually get a standard bike just for doing their tasks and mainly
going to office and avoiding traffic . In simple words, they need a basic bikes for their daily
needs and why would a person get a luxury bike when he can do his work with a basic bike?
In my opinion, Harley was not able to cope up with Indian market because of its pricing and
further , we should be very careful in pricing any products and we should not make a
mistake which Harley did in Indian market.