Strategic management involves the formulation of major goals that are taken by the top management of the company for the owners. It is based on the resources and includes an assessment of the internal along with the external environment within which an organization competes. Strategic management helps in providing direction to the enterprise and specifies the objectives of the organization. Strategic management has been illustrated with the help of this case study as it exposes the innovative manner of marketing of carsales.com.au that enables it to stay ahead of their competitors (Wijnhoven and Plant 2017). The strategic management of the company was different as compared to traditional companies that made it a game changer within the industry. The quality and consistent information provided by carsales.com.au made it popular among a wide range of population and helped in attracting the attention of the customers. The customer will be able to do a lot of research before they buy their favourite car. The unique facilities offered by carsales.com made it a hugely popular brand among the customers.
The goals of the top management helped the company in gaining an advantage over the competitors so that they can succeed in the market. Strategic management of carsales.com has been brought out with the help of this case study and it focuses on unique business model of the company. The classified advertising forum like The Trading Post earned profits by getting sellers who used to buy the advertisements of their cars. It helped them in generating advertising revenue. The main focus of carsales.com was on achieving the sale and the CEO Greg Roebuck offered the sellers a flat rate till the time the car was sold. It also states how putting the advertisement of car online can enable it to win over a large consumer base. It also emphasizes on the use of specialised technology that can help in creating high quality advertisements that can help the sellers who are searching for potential cars (Carsales.com.au, 2018).
The case study talks about how providing more information relating to the car can help in connecting the buyers with that of the sellers. The use of pictures in order to make the brand attractive is a marketing strategy that has been deployed by carsales.com.au to lure the customers. The use of internet in an era where a very small number of car dealers were connected to the internet helped the company to a great extent in gaining a strategic advantage over the peers (Lambert, Holmes and Warrington 2014). This is another important arena that has been discussed at length in the course of this case study and thus reveals the strategic management techniques of carsales.com. One can also compare the different cars and buy them on the basis of their needs and wants. The website displays different categories of cars and customers can search based on their particular requirement.
The competitive advantage that carsales.com has achieved is in relation to the business model of the company. It was initially founded in order to improve the quality of services in relation to car sale. It has helped the people in the process of buying and selling car. The Unique selling points (USP) of the company helped them in standing out over that of rival firms. The business model of the company was an area that helped in garnering a lot of support of the customers. Carsales.com.au has thought on a unique process of achieving sale and they offered the sellers a flat fee till the time the car was sold. This shows the dynamic management techniques of the CEO and the top management who has devised this innovative method in order to serve the purpose of attracting consumers (Chiu and Shu 2017). In an age where people could hardly spell the name “internet”, carsales.com.au created its unique presence in the internet and made use of specialised technology that can help the sellers to sell their cars. Greg along with his team put a lot of effort and used to physically collect pictures along with information regarding the cars from that of the dealers.Carsales.com.au did all that they could in order to draw the attention of the customer. The different strategic management techniques adopted helped the company in winning over loyal customers (Lambert, Holmes and Warrington 2014).
Carsales.com.au can maintain its competitive advantage by taking recourse to Instagram. Instagram is a great platform that helps in sharing the story of the brand. The beautiful pictures can attract the customer towards the brand (Wijnhoven and Plant 2017). Car consumers want to compare the models and look into the safety features before they buy a car. They tend to look for such kind of content that can help them in making a decision about the purchase of the car. Videos can be embedded within the website of the company and they can also be hosted on a channel like You tube that can help in driving more organic visibility. Interaction with the social fans can prove to be of great merit that can help the company maintain competitive advantage over that of the customers. Carsales.com.au should respond to the tweets and thank those who are responsible for sharing the content that can help in creating customer engagement (Chiu and Shu 2017). Monitoring should be done continuously that can help in earning valuable opportunities. Discounts and deals provided on carsales.com can help in the promotion of the brand.
I think that the success of Carsales.com.au is on account of both the internal along with that of the external factors. The internal factor comprises of the business model of the company and the initiative taken by the CEO Greg Roebuck of offering sellers a flat rate till the time the car was sold helped the brand to become popular (Bellini et al. 2017). The use of special technology that was instrumental in creating advertisements of high quality was another USP of Carsales.com.au. Though the plan of launching the advertisements of car online was a risky move but it helped the car brand in getting hold over the market (Yang and Coughlin 2014). Innovations and introduction of new functionality allow the customers to view the website on mobile device that was a crucial internal factor the success of the brand.
The external factors that has led to the success of carsales.com.au is the increase in standard of living of the average Australian household. The increase in per capita income has made it possible for the people to buy luxury items. The global economy can be conceived of to be an important external factor that has caused the car sales business to flourish. The fast paced lifestyle of people of the modern age does not leave one with sufficient amount of time to use the public transport (Williams, Rana and Dwivedi 2015). This is thus an important factor that has ensured the rising popularity of carsales.com.au. Many inexpensive new cars have come into the market that offer great fuel efficiency and does not sacrifice horsepower. They prove to be advantageous for the environment and is easily affordable by the customers (Butler, Garg and Stephens 2015). They can easily be bought by the budget conscious buyers. The banks also provide low interest and offer loans that can help the middle class household to buy their favourite cars.
Connectivity along with autonomous technology will allow the passengers to use the time in transit for personal activity which is a great advantage for the purchase of a car. The technological advances made will make the journey on the road comfortable for the users of private transport that will make the business of carsales.com.au to become more popular. An important driver of growth of carsales.com.au is the positive macroeconomic development and the rise of global middle class (Williams, Rana and Dwivedi 2015). A fundamental shift can be perceived in relation to individual mobility behaviour. It is being said that fully autonomous vehicles will become commercially available before the year 2020. Advanced driver-assistance system has played an important role in making the car business more popular (Berggren and Kågeson 2017).
SWOT analysis refers to a process with the help of which the management team can identify the internal along with external factors that will have an effect on the future performance of the company. The strengths along with weaknesses are indicative of the internal factors whereas opportunities along with threats point to the external environment factors that will have an effect on the growth of the company. It is an integral part of corporate planning process within which operational goals are set for the future (González, Cárcaba and Ventura 2015).
Every company has a finite supply in relation to the manpower and production capacity. Evaluation of strength of carsales.com.au by Greg Roebuck will help in the process of allocation of resources that will pave the path for revenue growth along with profitability of the company (Pollard, Chuo and Lee 2016). The management team of carsales.com.au can examine in which field the company can compete in the most effective manner. It will also help in analyzing the competitive strengths that has not been properly used in the past. Carsales.com.au has a great customer service department that is always ready to serve the customers and this one of the key strengths of the company. It can be developed so that it can lead to better customer satisfaction (Tornikoski, Rannikko and Heimonen 2017) The weakness of the company can be attributed to cash flow problem and analyzing the weakness can help in setting the stage clear for finding the solutions to the problem.
The high start-up cost is another barrier for the company that proved to be a barrier for the growth of the company. The size of the staff can be reduced that can help the company to earn more revenue. The service ratings should be displayed on the website of carsales.com.au that will help the consumers to get an idea about the quality of service provided by the brand. They will come forward to buy the car from their website. The innovation that allow the customers to view the website from the mobile devices is another compelling factor that will lead to the expansion of the brand. It will also deal in automotive products and divide into different new channels that will make the brand popular in the market (Pollard, Chuo and Lee 2016). The monitoring of the emerging technologies of carsales.com.au can be to be of extreme benefit for the business and set them apart from that of the other rival firms in Australia. Carsales.com.au can minimize the weakness and a financial source can be taken recourse to in case of being short on cash and the initiatives of the competitors should be analyzed at length for the success of the company. The government policies of Australia can act as a major hindrance and carsales.com.au should have in mind the policies so that it can grow in the long run.
References:
Bellini, E., Dell’Era, C., Frattini, F. and Verganti, R., 2017. Design?Driven Innovation in Retailing: An Empirical Examination of New Services in Car Dealership. Creativity and Innovation Management, 26(1), pp.91-107.
Berggren, C. and Kågeson, P., 2017. Speeding up electro-mobility: How to electrify half of new car sales by 2030.
Butler, J., Garg, R. and Stephens, B., 2015. Social Networks, Funding, and Regional Advantages in Technology Entrepreneurship.
Carsales.com.au (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.carsales.com.au/ [Accessed 8 Jan. 2018].
Chiu, C. and Shu, C.H., 2017, July. Monthly car sales prediction using Internet Word-of-Mouth (eWOM). In INnovations in Intelligent SysTems and Applications (INISTA), 2017 IEEE International Conference on (pp. 345-348). IEEE.
González, E., Cárcaba, A. and Ventura, J., 2015. How car dealers adjust prices to reach the product efficiency frontier in the Spanish automobile market. omega, 51, pp.38-48.
Lambert, D., Holmes, S. and Warrington, K.A., 2014. Cost and Time-Efficient Internet Car Sales.
Pollard, D., Chuo, S. and Lee, B., 2016. Strategies for mass customization. Journal of Business & Economics Research (Online), 14(3), p.101.
Tornikoski, E.T., Rannikko, H. and Heimonen, T.P., 2017. Technology?Based Competitive Advantages of Young Entrepreneurial Firms: Conceptual Development and Empirical Exploration. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(2), pp.200-215.
Wijnhoven, F. and Plant, O., 2017. Sentiment Analysis and Google Trends Data for Predicting Car Sales.
Williams, M.D., Rana, N.P. and Dwivedi, Y.K., 2015. The unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT): a literature review. Journal of Enterprise Information Management, 28(3), pp.443-488.
Yang, J. and Coughlin, J.F., 2014. In-vehicle technology for self-driving cars: Advantages and challenges for aging drivers. International Journal of Automotive Technology, 15(2), pp.333-340.
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