Solar Car Project Ford

Table of Contents

1. Introduction 3

2. Market 3

2.1. SWOT analysis 3

2.2. Porter’s Five forces 9

2.3. Competitor 11

3. Identification of the target 12

4. Pricing 13

4.1. Pricing strategy 13

4.2. List price 14

4.3. Pricing objectives 15

4.3. Payment terms 15

5. Channels of distribution 16

6. Promotion 17

6.1. Dealerships promotion 18

6.2. Television 18

6.3. Newspapers and magazine 18

6.4. Parties and events 19

6.5. Stands and free samples 19

6.6. Internet 19

6.7. Outdoor advertising 20

1. Introduction

After signing the Grenelle Environment 1 and 2 all car manufacturers take guidance related to cleaner and sustainable energy. Now they think about more global mobility solutions in which the solar car fits. Now open, willingly or unwillingly, to a new ecological consciousness they seek to rethink urban travel modes. After the apparition of electric cars in the past 10 years a new kind of car is born thanks to our company…the Sola(r)car. More convenient, more efficient, more ecological, our car will change the face of the automobile market in the all world. Solar powered cars have been developed and driven around the world for years, but almost exclusively in contests or research programs designed to show how far cars could travel without gas. In most cases, the cars have been small capsules designed to hold only a driver. Now that the dream has become a reality, we will endeavor to get this car to the largest number to enable a life without noise inconvenience or carbon pollution.

2. Market

In order to understand which market is the most efficient for our product, we are going to lead a market study. This analysis will be providing accordingly to our internal information in Ford Company and also thank to external information found on the Internet.

We will first conduct a SWOT analysis to understand the strengths and weaknesses of our company, then the threats and opportunities of our new activity.

2.1. SWOT ANALYSIS

INTERNAL FACTORS:

Strengths:

• Incentives for employed: Ford employees have more favorable labor conditions than some competitors in the automotive sector. This allows the company to have more qualified and willing employees to work for Ford.

• Higher wages: The average salary at Ford is higher than competitors. Wage claims and staff turnover are lower.

• Strong position in US market: We are the second largest automaker in US. We have great reputation in our home market and a strong commercial vehicle sales. Our cars are considered as the most profitable vehicles.

• Significant growth in China: Since we decided to penetrate the China automotive market, our sales continue to grow by 46% each year. We’re considering China Market as the most potential market for the next 5 years.

• Brand Image and Loyalty: Our Ford brand is world famous and its image is very good. Our customers are loyal and often buy a Ford car after a first purchase with us.

• ‘One Ford’ approach: We have decided to produce a single, streamlined global lineup in order to designing and engineering cars that fit different regional tastes and regulations. It decreases costs for us in terms of designing, engineering, manufacturing and shipment.

• Good quality products: Our cars models are considering as good quality products for our customers.

• Innovative products: We invest a large part of our resources in R&D program in order to foster innovative products to implement in our cars. The strategy is helping us to build a competitive advantage and make the difference for our clients. For example, we develop a fully autonomous car with solar energy.

• Good financial performance in US: In our markets, North America generated a profit before tax of $ 8.8 billion in 2013 and in Asia Pacific we generated $ 415 million in profits. During the American bailout in 2008, we sold a couple of our brands in order to have liquidity and pay back the American Government. Since, our profit margin is one of the highest compare to our competitors.

• Global Presence: We are selling our vehicles in 180 countries around the world, and also have set up several plants in China. (in 2013, we sold out 935813 cars in China, which increased by 49% from 626616 in 2012)

Weaknesses:

• We have been criticized for our minimum efforts in term of ecological impact. Several of our plants have been identified as highly polluted.

• High cost structure: Even if our ‘One Ford’ initiative led us obtain cost reduction; we still have a high cost structure in comparison to our competitors. One explanation can be to say that we have high and generous employee compensation and pension plans for our employees.

• Unprofitable Europe and South America market : we lost $1.75 billion in Europe and plans to experience losses in the region until 2015 in the traditional automotive market. South America is also on the downside, we had a loss of $ 34 million in 2013 against a profit of 213 million in 2012, mainly due to political instability in Venezuela.

Conclusion:

To summarize our weaknesses and our strengths at Ford, we can say that we are generally in good position to pretend for financial earnings growth in 2015. Our 2014 figures are very good in emerging markets and we confirmed our position in our home-market, US.

Our sales forecast are very promising in the Asian and North American market. However, we expect to still have losses in the European market despite our "Ford Fiesta" car at

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