Tata Motors, a member of the Tata Group, is an Indian multinational automotive manufacturing company. The products of the company include vehicles such as passenger cars, trucks, buses, sports cars, vans, coaches, construction equipments and military vehicles. This paper will focus on the marketing strategy of the Tata Sedan Zest. It is a non luxury sedan car which was launched in India in 2014. In the course of this assignment population, sampling method and approach of methods will be described to know the whereabouts of this particular car brand’s growth. As the company is popular and well-known, so the marketing strategy of this brand must be good to catch the market trend (Salati, 2014).
Tata Zest is one among the sedan produced by the company in 2014. This particular car is a part of Tata’s Falcon Program on the basis of the previous platforms on which other cars such as Manza and Vista were built. The Zest is available in both the versions of petrol and diesel and available in the international markets too. The unique petrol engine was designed to keep a check on the fuel consumption and power performance. it is also available in an attractive price with a refreshing interior and exterior design. Dawar and Arora (2016) have mentioned that in the study of present days, Market Model Method is used to estimate the cumulative abnormal returns in a 90- day period of the launch of Tata Zest on the stock prices of Tata Motors Ltd.
Alternative marketing strategies are useful in targeting specific age groups, neighborhoods, ethnic communities or low literacy families with special messages. Nielsen and Wilhite (2015) has mentioned in their article, The rise and fall of the ‘people’s car’: middle-class aspirations, status and mobile symbolism in ‘New India’ that when the Indian car manufacturer Tata Motors introduces its new car there was an assumption that it would have powerful impact on the target market but it did not go accordingly. The reason was not its mediocrity or that it was unaffordable but it was argued that the penetration in the lower designation of the powerful strata of the identifiable objects prohibited it from hitting the desire of the consumers.
The company has boosted up for a restoration in their passenger vehicle space with the backing of an aggressive refurbish plan (The Hindu, 2014). Although, the two cars Bolt and Zest were supposed to be the comeback cars of the company. Unfortunately the sales reports clearly reflected that these two has tremendously failed to attract the buyers. The sale of Bolt was 72 units while the sale of Zest was 2006 units which were much less as compared to Maruti Suzuki DZire and Honda Amaze. Tata Bolt being a competitor of Maruti Suzuki Swift and Hyundai i10 could not even come close to their figures in terms of selling.
It can be recommended that they can come out with new features to rework on their branding or marketing strategies to bring back the customers. The company uses the strategy of giving discounts each month and their special promotion for the specific vehicles is their strong pricing strategy. They also use the dealership method for distributing their products. To improve their sale they have to make better products and work on improving the marketing strategy. Tata Group is also considered as a feasible alternative to the automobile market leaders Maruti and Hyundai. The company should pay attention to penetrate the market in the two- wheeler category rather than remaining stuck in the passenger vehicle sector as it is a potential and unexplored market. They have a strong presence in the Asian market but need to expand their base in European and US markets.
Population in research study is the group of individuals selected from the general population with common characteristics for several reasons such as response to a problem or risk of a potential problem. As it was mentioned by Chatterjee (2015) in his article, A study of consumer behaviour towards premium passenger car segment in Uttar Pradesh in post liberalization era, that the production and consumption of automobiles in the Indian market has both economic and political value. Therefore the population for the research study on Zest Sedan has to be selected carefully. After the liberalization phase, the automobile market in India was in a growing stage with the inflow of various types of cars in the market to cater to the needs of the Indian population. This specific population is progressively more open to the elements of world automobiles and wishes to get the best in terms of buying a car. The officials of the company are well aware of the problems faced by the Tata group and decide to execute a proper plan for overcoming the threat. The company is planning to target the youth and also focus on the rural population by adopting the segmented marketing strategies to achieve the target.
It can be recommended that the company should focus only on the urban population because there is no chance of success in the rural areas. As the income scale of the rural population is comparatively lower than the urban population therefore their first priority will be to meet the necessity rather than buying the luxurious car. If the selected population for the research study is youth, then the company will have to read their pulse by portraying the Tata product at the youth festivals, campuses and IT parks (Rao 2016). The young population is more interested in trying out new cars that penetrate the market therefore the company will have a potential increase in sale by targeting the specific population. With the new product targeting the youth, the company will be able to compete with Hyundai’s i10 Grand and WagonR and Celerio of Maruti Suzuki. By selecting the specific population it became convenient for the company to foresee the desire of the customers and result in the development of an enhanced and revolutionary product.
A sampling frame is the main source from which the sample for the research study is withdrawn. The sampling frame is a part of population who can be used as sample for the benefits of the research. It was mentioned in the article Sampling in Interview-Based Qualitative Research: A Theoretical and Practical Guide by Robinson (2014) that sampling is the centre of the collecting qualitative data for the research methods. The sampling frame takes into account the sample universe, sample size, sample strategy and sample sourcing.
For the particular research study on Tata Zest Sedan, the youth market was selected as population for the research study. But the whole youth group cannot be used in the research study. The sample should be selected from the total population on the basis of universe, size, strategy and sourcing. The sample universe is the total youth group who are targeted by the company for the procurement of the new product. The universe of Zest Sedan is the young group in all those places where the company sells its products. From the universe, the sample size is collected which refers to the number of observations in a sample. For this research study on Tata Zest Sedan, as the whole population is the youth group therefore the sample size will be based on the age and the income level. For instance, Tata Zest Sedan can target the growing urban middle class which includes the young working professionals in urban areas. The sample strategy is the plan that is put forward to make sure that the sample used in the research corresponds to the population from where the sample was drawn (Bhatia 2013). Therefore, for making the correct research strategy, it is important to be attentive towards the organizational vision and make a mission statement accordingly. In this way the company’s current standing will be assessed which will be helpful in listing down the necessary success factors. A strategy can be developed such as improving the branding or introduce new products or revise the pricing strategy to get hold of the new market. Sample sourcing can be the space from where the sample is drawn for instance, in this particular research; the sample is sourced from a wide range of urban young population.
It can be recommended that the sampling frame should be the young working population from the urban areas who have a passion for new automobiles in the market as well as able to afford and maintain the Zest Sedan.
Different approaches are used in the process of selecting sample from the population so that by studying the sample the outcome might be generalized back to the selected population. There are different types of sampling technique such as random sampling, stratified sampling, cluster sampling, multistage sampling and systematic random sampling. In the article A Comparison of Different Online Sampling Approaches for Generating National Samples, Heen, Lieberman and Miethe (2014) had stated that online surveys provide a new and evolving method for measuring public opinion on a local, national and international level. In comparison to the traditional approaches of survey, online surveys are better in terms of speed, efficiency and utilize lesser amount of costs in data collection. For the research on Tata Zest Sedan, the alternative research approaches can be random sampling or cluster sampling or stratified sampling.
Palinkas et al. (2015) mentioned in his article Purposeful Sampling for Qualitative Data Collection and Analysis in Mixed Method Implementation Research that purposeful sampling is used in the process of qualitative research for identification and selection and selection of cases which are rich in information and related to the interest of the instances. But for the case of Zest Sedan random sampling will take into consideration the requirements of each member of the young population where there is a chance of each member to be selected. In case of cluster sampling the researcher will divide the young population on the basis of age, gender and income scale that is the population will be divided into separate clusters. Among those clusters, the researcher can conduct an analysis on the data received from the sampled clusters. Similarly, in stratified sampling the researcher will also divide the population into separate groups which are known as strata. A probability sample is done after the process of separation into groups (Jacobs 2015).
It can be recommended for the case of Zest Sedan that the researcher can use the approach of cluster sampling. This will allow the researcher to select sampling units from the population. It will be a better option for the particular study because the clusters such as the gender, age and income level of the young group are easily available when the total population cannot be accessed. The population can also be divided into clusters of those places where the product of Tata is going to be launched.
Acharya et al. (2013) has mentioned in Sampling: Why and How of it? that a sample is a subset of population, selected so as to be representative of the larger population. For the case study on Tata Zest Sedan, the cluster sampling is used. This approach is going to be effective as the different clusters can be easily identified in the population. Various clusters in the population of young group are their age, gender, income level and the cities where the new product will be launched. The researcher will easily gather data pertaining to the clusters mentioned above. Moreover, this approach is considered suitable as it is cost effective, can be done quickly and easily. It is much easier in than sampling the whole country in random sampling, instead the researcher can assign the limited resources to the few selected clusters in those areas when cluster samples are used.
From the article of Balachandar, the information that can be gathered will help in the research by cluster sampling. It was mentioned in The Hindu (2014) that the two proposed launches of the company, Bolt and Zest the company hopes to regain its market share in the automotive industry. The researcher will be able to help the company in reaching its target by conducting a market research with the help of cluster sampling. The research will help in accessing the different clusters and gather data from the specific respondents. The data that will be gathered from the market research will help in revising the mission of the company’s product. This approach was recommended because cluster sampling will help in considering the individual clusters of age, gender, income level and cities and thus enable smoothness in research. With the clustered segmentation the response received will be authentic and help in the analysis of data
It can be recommended that the Tata Company should think of changing their branding and launch new products into the market at a regular interval. With innovated branding and sleek designing the company will be able to gather more customers and regain their lost share. They will be able to compete with the other giants in the automobile industry with their new marketing strategies. The innovative technique that they can use for their new products are a stronger design which will be appealing to the customers. With the newly designed steering wheels, instrument cluster and combined display for multi- information, the company will be able to hit the market by participating I the run of best looking cars. They can use their innovative technology in the form of central AC vents which are connected in a single- wing shaped graphics.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from this assignment that after a long time the Tata Company is on a journey of launching a Sedan Zest and a Hatchback Bolt to mark their determined venture in the particular industry. The launch of their new products will help them in achieving the organizational goal. Their intention is to hit the double digit market share by revising their branding and pricing strategy. They will also bring changes in the launching of their product as well as variance in the product designing.
The researcher has selected the process for cluster sampling for the particular market research. This was considered suitable out of all the approaches as it was cost effective on one hand and on the other it was not at all time consuming. Different clusters such as age, gender, income level and city were considered from the vast population of young group for collecting information. The total population will be segregated in different clusters for the ease of the research study. The information that will be gathered from the respondents will help the company to work towards the achievement of their target. The necessary response that will be received from the sample will also determine the life- cycle of the product in the market.
Reference
Acharya, A.S., Prakash, A., Saxena, P. and Nigam, A., 2013. Sampling: Why and how of it. Indian Journal of Medical Specialties, 4(2), pp.330-333.
Bhatia, J., 2013. Marketing strategies of car manufacturers in india.
Brown, S., 2016. Brands and Branding. Sage.
Chatterjee, A., 2015. A study of consumer behaviour towards premium passenger car segment in Uttar Pradesh in post liberalization era a case study of Kaval Towns.
Dawar, D. and Arora, S., 2016. Event Study on Stock Prices of Tata Motors-A Study on Launch of Zest. Wealth: International Journal of Money, Banking & Finance, 5(1).
Heen, M.S., Lieberman, J.D. and Miethe, T.D., 2014. A comparison of different online sampling approaches for generating national samples. Center for Crime and Justice Policy, CCJP, 1.
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Marana, A., 2017. Entry strategies in the fast growing electric vehicle market.
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Palinkas, L.A., Horwitz, S.M., Green, C.A., Wisdom, J.P., Duan, N. and Hoagwood, K., 2015. Purposeful sampling for qualitative data collection and analysis in mixed method implementation research. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, 42(5), pp.533-544.
Rao, C.B., 2016. Technology and Competitive Strategy: Perspectives for Innovators, Differentiators and Followers. Notion Press.
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Salati, A. (2014). Tata Zest: Top 3 things that make it a stand-out Sedan. [online] India.com. Available at: https://www.india.com/buzz/tata-zest-top-3-things-that-make-it-a-stand-out-sedan-118363/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIpPulw-DM1wIVFCQrCh3QMAgyEAAYASAAEgJe5PD_BwE [Accessed 20 Nov. 2017].
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