Discuss about the Great Wall Motors for Australian Motor Market.
The future of Great Wall, the best-selling motor brand in Australian motor market, remains tainted due to the persistent legal dispute between its Australian distributor and the vehicle manufacturer in china. The transactions involving of key Great Wall brands such as the X-series SUVs and V-series utes have nearly come to a standstill within the past months. The company’s Australian distributor (Ateco Automotive) has refrained from importing the Great Wall brand, therefore selling the previously stocked vehicles. Both parties are reluctant to address the stop of business, which has even made worse by the launch of Haval. Promoting the importation and sale of unpopular Chinese vehicle brands is even more complicated (“Mesothelioma Center – Vital Services for Cancer Patients & Families” 2016). According to Neville Crichton, Ateco Automotive, and the Great Wall Motors’ producers both suffer from a loss due to the legal disputes between these two companies. These parties, however, are against the idea of sharing the details of the dispute to the public. The owner of Ateco Automotive has termed the situation damage to the reputation of the Chinese car brands (Pearlman 2012).
Perception is indeed reality and of great significance. People exhibit diverse perceptions of vehicle brands. These perceptions can negatively or positively influence the sales of different brands, therefore, reflecting on the total number of sales a company makes within a given period of time. Due to the perception that people had of the affordability of the Chinese vehicles, higher sales were recorded in Australia, making it one of the most competitive vehicle market. Many people praised the Great Wall vehicle brands, mainly due to the affordability, quality, and reassurance that the company offered (Ruff and Aziz 2003). However, after a publication by Toby Hagon, regarding the low quality of a test sample, many people began perceiving the vehicle brand as sub-standard. According to Toby Hagon, the vehicles were entirely inappropriate for the types of roads they were intended for. To confirm his fears, Toby Hagon asked the distribution company to offer a test vehicle for further investigations, a request which Ateco declined. Ateco Automotive was aware that the investigations would entail comparing the vehicle brands it was distributing to the much expensive and higher-quality competitor brands like Toyota, Nissan, and Hyundai. These proceedings, therefore, confirmed to Toby and the general public that quality and safety issues were among the many concerns that surrounded the Chinese car brands (Razagui 2012).
To carry out his investigations, Toby decided to purchase a second hand Great Wall brand vehicle and was surprised at the rate within which the value of the car had depreciated. After conducting his investigations, Toby tried to resell it again but failed and after waiting for several months, the car was purchased at a price much lower than its original value.
The view that these vehicles were of low quality was further exacerbated by the asbestos circumstance. The discovery that the exhaust and engine systems contained the hazardous asbestos further worsened the brand’s perception within the public domain. The discovery brought forth ugly memories of the harm and deaths which had earlier on been caused by asbestos, from the infamous manufacturing corporation owned by James Hardie. The Australian population was therefore very sensitive to the adverse impacts which could be caused by this substance (Pettendy 2012).
To further worsen the situation, a spokesperson from the Chinese manufacturer revealed that the problem arose due to a mistaken use of asbestos in vehicles which were never intended to be exported and distributed in Australia. This, therefore, proved the negligence on the part of the Chinese manufacturer since the use of asbestos had earlier on been prohibited in around 55 countries, and no country legally allowed the use of this poisonous substance. This, therefore, proved that the perception that people had regarding the vehicles were accurate and the impact was felt and confirmed by the dropping shares on the Hong- Kong Stock Exchange market (Anderson 2011, p.550).
The manifestation of asbestos in the exhaust and engine system was originally exposed by the Customs and Border Protection officials. Due to the discovery, a safety team was set up to conduct investigations regarding the validity of this sensitive discovery. The team was composed of Ateco Automotive, Employment and Workplace Relations, Department of Education, the Workcover Authority and the ACCC.
To try handling the situation, Ateco Automotive communicated to the affected owners of the vehicles and assured them that any component of the vehicles containing asbestos would be replaced by qualified dealers. The distributor additionally assured the customers that safety procedures have been implemented to make sure that these components are correctly handled by authorized personnel. Ateco Automotive further stated that it had received an apology letter from the Chinese manufacturer, which had previously assured the distributor of the quality and safety of their brands. Additionally, the distributor instructed other distributors to cease from selling Great Wall brands and Chery brands which were affected by asbestos. The company also recalled every affected spare part which had earlier on been distributed (Anderson 2011, p.560).
Up until that point, Ateco Automotive had handled the situation in a very efficient manner, however, the company failed to inform the general public of the harm that the affected vehicles posted. According to ACCC, the distributor should have arranged a public awareness strategy and placed warning stickers on each affected component, organize for disposal and safety handling guidelines of each affected spare part, and finally prepare to learn materials such as videos to offer training (Ötker 2014).
The Automotive distributor should have prevented the importation of the low-quality Great Wall brand if it had thoroughly examined and assessed the safety and quality issues concerning these cars. Notably, it was the supplier’s failure to prevent the problem in the first place. The Australian Manufacturing Union termed the importation a breach of the country’s regulations and customs among other regulations. The union argued that the distributor should be investigated and criminal prosecution set if it was proven that the distributor ignored the issue and went on to purchase the affected vehicles (Anderson 2011, p.553). Finally, basing our argument on the steps that the automotive distributor took to control the situation, it is evident that Ateco moved swiftly and with professional proficiency to try to curb the situation, at the same time protecting its reputation (Castleman 2000, p.862).
The main goals and objectives of public relations include; creating, protecting, and maintaining the prestige, reputation, and social expectations of the organization to promote its image. Different studies have proven that consumers depend on the reputation of an organization to make decisions regarding the purchase of different products and services. Public relations are therefore a very effective component of a company’s marketing strategy (O’Brien 2012). Goodwill is also generated through desirable public relations which promote stockholder, employee, community, media, and investor relations. Most importantly, companies use public relations to offer the required education to relevant audiences regarding many aspects that are beneficial to the company (Schnurbein 2013, p.360). This section discusses the options companies can take in order to handle PR concerns.
First and foremost, organizations should make attempts to educate the community, its stakeholders, and its staff, to equip them with the knowledge necessary for understanding and analyzing public relations concerns. After that, organizations can conduct particular public relations campaigns which can be carried out in reactive and proactive ways with an aim of managing the PR crisis. These campaigns should involve research and analysis to enable a reliable determination of factors which might be contributing to the crisis. This step enables organizations to have an accurate view of what the society perceives of it.
Secondly, organizations should establish policies which guide their operations in the public eye. These policies should clearly define the desired outcomes and goals of public relations, as well the jurisdictions within which the organizations operate. Policy guidelines can also enable organizations to assess proposed public relations tactics and strategies as well as their successes. Applying the knowledge of the target consumers, the organizations should initiate programs to achieve the set objectives. Also, the organizations should create clear communication channels with the public with the assistance of PR techniques like press conferences to reach the target populations.
Organizations can also offer necessary assistance to the general public in instances where the population is affected by natural disasters and even motor accidents. Organizations can also actively involve themselves in assisting their customers in case of complaints arising from managerial wrongdoing, bankruptcy, and product failures. The public relations practitioners should be actively involved in these operations to increase their effectiveness. Being directly involved with social issues which affect the public can go a long way in building or re-building an organization’s prestige and image. Moreover, public relations officials within an organization should come up with straightforward and honest plans in advance to help them handle impending PR crises. Also, these plans will enable organizations to reduce the chances of major public relation crises occurring.
Organizations can prepare and implement different educational programs to educate their potential customers on ways of handling disputes in a manner that lessen the severity of common misunderstandings. Different opportunities which organizations can utilize to educate their clients include offering relevant printed materials, sponsoring media programs, and publicly sharing the conclusions arising from surveys. These educational programs may effectively inform clients on business and economic matters to enable them to understand that some mistakes are completely unintentional (Richardson & Stern 2011, p.15).
Organizations which have in the past fallen victims of public relations crises should learn from the process. No matter the harm the organizations suffered from these crises, there are lots of important lessons they can learn from the crises. The organizations should, therefore, try to learn how to manage and avoid crises (Devlin 2005). Finally, organizations should employ feedback mechanisms to enable the public send their feedback regarding a crisis. These feedback channels will help the organizations be aware of the urgent and unexpected turns from the public. Through this, organizations will know when, where, and how to react to different situations. They should assess all their crisis management programs and make amendments if necessary (Coombs & Holladay 2012, p.410).
A stereotype is a generalized and fixed belief one has of a specific culture or group of people. Stereotypes are usually based on certain truths and realities, or even past repeated events. Normally, people look out for differences and similarities between different entities and begin to make connections. These stereotypes also assist many people to establish relationships between a group of entities and form perceptions about them (Rudolph & Baltes 2013, p.428). Stereotyping can come with negative actions such as, justifying ignorance and prejudices which are completely ill-founded, failing to unlearn or correct the behavior and attitudes held towards a certain entity, and preventing entities, like companies from succeeding in their courses (Massey 2001, p.170).
Nevertheless, stereotypes can be handled in ways which improve the consequences facing the affected entities. First and foremost, to control stereotyping, policies which campaign for zero tolerance to this kind of behaviour should be established in every organization. Administrative officials and the human resource teams should address concerns presented to these organizations by their clients, in a private manner. Training seminars, role-playing, and group discussions should be authorized to compliment corrective policies for individuals who violate the set discriminatory policies (“Managing knowledge to control a crisis” 2008, p. 29). Group training sessions can educate an organization’s internal and external stakeholders on how to work collaboratively in order to understand one another better. Once different entities learn to work collaboratively, they learn to view each other independently, therefore, reducing stereotypes. Teams, partnerships, and workgroups should be encouraged in different organizations to break down inappropriate barriers in perception (Rudolph & Baltes 2013, p.425).
Finally, critical thinking should be taught to encourage independent and reflective thinking. Both internal and external stakeholders should be urged to carefully assess, construct and identify arguments, systematically solving problems, detect inconsistencies in perceptions, and identify the significance and contributions of peoples’ ideas (Grewal & Tansuhaj 2001, p.72).
Conclusion
According to the Great Wall Motors case study, it is evident that poor communication may affect different institutions in adverse ways. The way in which an organization conducts its activities involves their clients and work on feedback that greatly influences the perceptions of the external population. As proven by the case of Great Wall Motors, what people perceive of an entity determines their relationship with the entity and their decision-making processes. However, despite the public relations crisis which affected Ateco Automotive and Great Wall Motors Company in China, the distributor tried it best to solve the asbestos issues in accordance with professional advice among other legal requirements. Appropriately managing public relations issues is very important in maintaining an organization’s prestige and reputation. Finally, both external and internal company stakeholders should be trained on the effective ways of handling minor crises affecting their institution. Critical thinking empowerment programs should be introduced to handle stereotypes, hence ensuring that crises are solved in ways which reduce their negative impacts.
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