TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. INTRODUCTION.. 5
2. VISION STATEMENT. 5
3.  MISSION STATEMENT. 5
4. BUSINESS OBJECTIVES.. 6
5. SWOT ANALYSIS.. 7
6. MARKETING.. PAGEREF _Toc38042140 \h5
   1. MARKET SEGMENTS…………………………………………………………………7
   1. MARKETING STRATEGY…………………………………………….……………….8
   1. PROMOTION…………………………………………………………………..………..9
   1. PRICING STRATEGY…………………………………………………………………9
7. COMPETITIVE STRATEGY.. 10
8. OPERATIONS.. 11
   1. OPERATIONAL STRATEGY…………………………………………………………11
   1. DESIGNS, OPTIONS, R&D…………………………………………………………..12
9. HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGY…………………………………………………..…..113
10. CONCLUSION.. 113
11. REFERNCES…………………………………………………………………………….…14
12.  APPENDIX 1- MEETING MINUTES…………….……………………………………….14
13.  APPENDIX 2- PESTEL ANALYSIS…………………………………………………….19

1.    INTRODUCTION

Zippy Motor Corporation is a partnership venture established in United Kingdom. We craft customer delight by providing a friendly buying experience. With low maintenance costs, easy availability of spare parts, proximity to its service centers and aged car replacement with new models, we build strong trust with the customers. The best thing about our product is that we do not compromise the quality of our products (Volery&Mazzarol, 2015.)

 

2.    VISION STATEMENT

    Ourvision is to provide the finest cars in our country by pro-actively implementing the decisions through cooperation, integration and efficiently innovating the ideas and valuing the customers to become a renowned brand.

3.    MISSION STATEMENT

Zippy aims at being the best energy efficient car company with most up-to-date technology in the European market. We strive to be an organization that constantly innovates new technology to remain globally competitive in this day and age of rising challenges. We aim to build environmental friendly cars and hope to deliver a product which creates human contentment.                 

4.    BUSINESS OBJECTIVES

• To Build trust in customers

Our basic aim is to build long term relationship by following the dual approach of satisfying customer needs through superior quality products along with customization and feedback mechanism to continuously improve our products.

• To Provide high quality products

 We never compromise on the quality of our products as quality is the fundamental requirement starting from the factory manufacturing stage to after sales service.

• To Build superior customer-service

An increasingly significant factor in determining business success is its ability to deliver excellent customer care experiences. We stay in touch with our customers online or on the phone for any assistance.

• To Grow company’s reputation

Focusing on the credibility of your company is extremely crucial as it can make or break your business. Our focus is to grow together with our employees, customers and all other stakeholders through its operations and Corporate social responsibility.

FIGURE 1: BUSINESS OBJECTIVES OF ZIPPY MOTOR CORPORATION

5.    SWOT ANALYSIS

Zippy used SWOT analysis to understand the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats internally and externally (Hay and Castilla, 2006).

SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGTHS	WEAKNESSES
Offering wide variety of features.Usage of most up-to-date technology.Quality oriented vehicles.Highly skilles labour.	New Entrants in market.Easy to imitate.High risk of brand image if mishap happens.
OPPORTUNITIES	THREATS
Can target European as well as middle east market.Scale up to manufacture HTV’s.Can introduce multiple products in future.Rapid global development.	Competitive market.Can acquire by giants if continuously face loss.Buyer power of bargain is high due to fresh entry in the market.

Table 1 SWOT ANALYSIS

6.    MARKETING

6.1 MARKET SEGMENTS

During the market segmentation process, there are several considerations that a business will need to analyze including how open segments are and basic identification criteria. Therefore, it becomes important to establish right products for the right target market. There are four types of market segmentation as shown in the figure below and we will follow a demographic segmentation approach as we manufacture cars keeping in mind the age group of our taget market.

            FIGURE 2: TYPES OF MARKET SEGMENTATION (SOURCE FROM: https://learn.g2.com/market-segmentation)

Zippy Corporation has introduced two models named Hydra and Zing in the European market. Hydra is a medium car for the customers in the age group of 25-40 with the market size of 12% and Zing is a large car for the customers in the age group of 41-55 with the market size of 6.75% (refer table below). We feel that the age group between 25-40 has immense interest in the facial features and functioning of the car versus the practical features which is preferred by people above 40 years. At the same time, the price suitability for both the age groups is apt. We guarantee the safety, reliability, energy-efficient, environment friendly cars to our customers.

Model name	Car size	Taget age group	Market share
Hydra	Medium	25-40	12%
Zing	Large	41-55	6.75%

TABLE 2: MODEL & TARGET AGE GROUP DETAILS

        6.2 MARKETING STRATEGY

The marketing team at Zippy Corporation has decided to use Ansoff’s matrix (Ansoff, 1965) to enter into the market. At every stage we will do the following activities:

Marketing penetration: By conducting a competition among the general public and winner to be rewarded £500 voucher which will create a good impression about the company.

Product development: By conducting surveys to uncover the troubles faced by the customers and resolving during the next service.

Market Development: we will collect information about the products that our competitors are offering and will process the information to develp a better product at a better price.

Diversification: Keep in mind all the advantages of the previous product and keep on improving the existing product.

Source: Iqor Ansof. Corporate Startegy”, McGraw-Hill. 1987

Figure3: Ansoff’s production/market growth

 

6.3 PROMOTION

In order to increase the awareness of our brand, Zippy has decided to invest £m184 in different advertisement channels. The rationale behind choosing a range of marketing channels is to increase customer awareness in 1^st year of trading only to benefit in the future while contending in the competitive market. The bifurcation of the initial investment can be seen below table:

Types of promotion	Cost
Television	14
Magazines/Newspapers	11
Dealer Incentives	80
Digital Media	10
Promotional Offers	70

                     Table 1 Promotion Cost.

We have planned to launch the product at a large scale involving live telecast to grab media attention, pre-launch party for the famous people including celebrities and frequent advertisement on television to register the brand in the minds of people.

6.4 PRICING STRATEGY

Pricing strategy is one of the key strategy in building and sustaining a business. It is a method which is used to determine a suitable price of a product, the price where a company would attain maximum profit while meeting the customer demands and their willingness to pay for the product.

The Pricing of Zippy Motors is based on value-based pricing strategy. The prices are set according to the value and quality of the product. Zippy has launched Hydra and Zing and their prices depend on the features that both the models offer, investment on Research and development and also on the services that Zippy provides with both these models.

Market Sector	6	11
Model Name	Hydra	Zing
Workforce	1900	1300
Material Cost £	9433.17	13704.98
Designs and Options Cost £	3268	5647.62
Labour cost £	506.67	742.86
Model Price £	28,000	36,000
Gross Margin	52.83%	44.18%

Table 4 Number of Car Produced and Selling Prices

Keeping in mind the designs and options of our cars, we believe the selling price of our cars are levelheaded as our cars are equipped with the latest technology. Although Hydra is a medium car targeting age group between 25 to 40, we provide the Leather upholstery to comfort our passengers on long family journeys with a large petrol engine which is energy efficient. On the other hand, Zing has all the luxury features like advanced navigation system, keyless entry and electrically foldable and heated door mirrors keeping in mind the safety.

7.      COMPETITIVE STARTEGY

Zippy Corporation also chose Porter’s generic competitive strategies (Porter,1965) for the competitive strategy.

Figure 4: Strategic Advantage (Source from:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Porters-generic-strategies_fig1_325795099

Our plan for Zippy Motors is to follow a cost leadership strategy for Hydra by reducing our selling price. We will lower all material costs by buying spare parts in bulk to receive huge discounts. Also, our focus will be to provide better features as compared to our competitors. We’re using the new technology to help us eliminate wastage. For Zing, we are using Differentiation strategy by offering unique features and the cost will be slightly higher with a better quality product.

8.    OPERATIONS

8.1  OPERATIONAL STRATEGY

To achieve our service goal of 0 inventories, by applying the JIT and Lean principles, we agreed to strengthen the manufacturing processes. Leite and Vieira reported that JIT enables effective utilization of resources and process flows by minimizing large flows and reducing waste. Keeping such philosophies into account, we have balanced the number of workers, and we have tried to make a somewhat reasonable estimation of demand to comply with one of the concepts of lean manufacturing; where the amounts generated are manufactured in response to the need to prevent overproduction to stay in line with our goal of zero inventories. We are using push production for Hydra and pull production for Zing.

8.2  DESIGNS, OPERATIONS, AND R&D        

	Hydra   Medium (25-40 years)	Zing Large (41-55 years)
OPTIONS	1.    Extended Warranty/Servicing Folding/Dimming Ext MirrorsHeated WindscreenLeather Upholstery/FinishControlled AirconditioningWireless phone charging/USBTech/safety pack	1.    Extended Warranty/Servicing Navigation + InternetFolding/Dimming Ext MirrorsRear View cameraWireless phone charging/USBTech/safety packLuxury styling pack
DESIGN	1.    2/4 Door Saloon/Estate Large petrol Engine	1.    SUV (4×4) Large Petrol Engine
R&D	1.    Product Relaunch 2.    Fuel Efficiency Facelift

Table 5: Design, Option and R&D details

Engines, designs, and options are selected, taking into account the popularity factors. We aim to manufacture the cars that the consumer wants and requires and ensure the upkeep of the quality at a moderate level to attract as many customers as possible (Abrams, 2003). We provide 7 options in both Hydra and Zing which can be seen in the table above. Zippy Motor Corporation focused on creating a medium car which is well suited for families and a large car which is nothing less than a luxury itself.

As far as R&D Is concerned, we have decided to invest in enhanced construction quality, fuel-efficient engines to be more competitive and facelift of the product to ensure continuous improvements in the existing products and improved technology in the new cars.

9.      HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGY

At Zippy Motors, candidates will be selected for required positions through a series of

tests including one-o-one interviews. Employees will be regularly evaluated with reference to handling the job pressure. Moreover, we will have performance based reward system in place to recognize the work of our employees. We believe in continuous improvement of the work environment through several feedbacks from the existing employees. Human resources management has a affirmative impact on employee job satisfaction and has a pessimistic impact on employee fatigue.

In order to develop a competitive advantage among our competitors, we have spent £m14 to train our staff to improve their efficiency especially the with Management people. In the interest of the company, the self-development of employees determines the worth that can be created for the company.

 

Wages £	400/ week.
Working per year	50 weeks
Redundancy Payments	12 weeks of final salary in case laying-off workers
Absenteeism	4 days per year to grant leverage to the employees.
Strikes	3 days

          Table 6: Major HR Commitments

10.  CONCLUSION

As a result, Zippy Motors has developed a business model that is customer-oriented, valuing workers, and has a competitive edge. This model is evolving, generating an increasing annual income, and has good market sustainability.

Zippy strives to be highly profitable, efficient, and wishes to expand into other competitive markets while producing exciting new and innovative products. This will lead the company to be a market leader in the car manufacturing industry in terms of price and exclusivity.(Kinnunen, Pekuri, Haapasalo&Kuvaja, 2011).

 

11.  REFERENCES

1. Hay, G.J. and Castilla, G., 2006, July. Object-based image analysis: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT). In Proc. 1st Int. Conf. OBIA (pp. 4-5).
2. Volery, T., &Mazzarol, T. (2015). The evolution of the small business and entrepreneurship field: A bibliometric investigation of articles published in the International Small Business Journal. International Small Business Journal, 33(4), 374-396.
3. Ansoff, H. I. (1965). Competitive strategy: An analytic approach to business policy for growth and expansion. McGraw-Hill Companies.
4. Porter, M. E. (1985). Competitive advantage: creating and sustaining superior performance. 1985. New York: FreePress.
5. Abrams, R. M. (2003). The successful business plan: secrets & strategies. The Planning Shop.
6. Kinnunen, T., Pekuri, A., Haapasalo, H., &Kuvaja, P. (2011). Business case analysis in new product development. Global journal of management and business research, 11(2).

12.  APPENDIX 1- MEETING MINUTES:

Meeting No. 1

Participants: Mahin, Deepika, Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: No

Date: 05/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. User Manual
2. Division of roles and responsibilities
3. Company goals

Discussion Points:

1. Everyone was asked to read the user manual thoroughly to have a better understanding of the business game.
2. We discussed about the team objectives and how we will work in our team where:
   1. Lahari was given the position of the Team Leader of our group since she is good at communicating with everyone and keeping everyone connected.
   1. All communications to the teachers and the business game moderators would go through Lahari on behalf of our team.
3. We decided that the responsibility of each of the team members as can be seen below:
   1. Factory location to be decided by Mahin.
   1. Technical specifications of the car to be sold to be decided by Ashwin.
   1. Selling Price to be decided by Gurjot.
   1. Size of workforce to be decided by Deepika.
   1. Number of cars to be produced to be decided by Lahari.
4. We decided about our major company goals and had a discussion around them.

Actions:

1. Gone through the user manual.
2. Everyone worked on the responsibilities assigned which shall be discussed in the next meeting.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 2

Participants: Mahin, Deepika, Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: No

Date: 10/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Car model and target market
2. Workforce and automation discussion
3. Target production and labour costs
4. Selling price of the car

Discussion Points:

1. We discussed about two models that need to be introduced in the first year. We discussed on the names of the models, car size and target age group of the customers. We also decided on the design and options for two models.
2. We had a collective discussion about how much workforce should be allocated to each model to avoid spending on another factory and at the same time to avoid under utilisation of our factory capability. Automation was also discussed keeping in mind efficiency without any error and its contribution on a whole.
3. Target production was decided along with the applicability of push and pull production methods. Labour costs were decided and were tried to be kept minimum in order to ensure profit and at the same time not too low to dissatisfy our labourers.
4. Selling price was decided and kept above the labour costs and not too high for the customers which might impact our sales.

Actions:

1. Reviewed the viability of both the models.
2. Read the User manual for Market research.
3. Reviewed the numbers considered for every financial aspect.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 3

Participants: Mahin, Deepika, Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: No

Date: 10/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Forecast form
2. Decision form
3. Research & Development
4. Training

Discussion Points:

1. Forecast model form numbers were discussed basis our assumptions of workforce, automation investment, target production, selling price of the car.
2. Decision form operations module numbers were discussed as per the numbers taken in the forecast model form.
3. Decision was taken on the investment to be allocated on Research and Development, marketing investment and skills and development training investment.

Actions:

1. Entered numbers in the forecast model form.
2. Entered numbers in the Decision form.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 4

Participants: Mahin, Deepika, Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: No

Date: 15/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Wages
2. Marketing Strategies
3. Operational Strategies

Discussion Points:

1. We discussed about wages
2. We discussed about the marketing strategies (Ansoff matrix and porters competitive strategy)
3. We discussed about the operational strategies (JIT & lean).
4. We also discussed on company’s operating model and how to ensure that the entire system remains unwavering.

Actions:

1. Operations, HR, finance strategies to be decided by revisiting the lectures which were taught to us.
2. Re-read the user manual.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 5

Participants: Mahin, Deepika, Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: No

Date: 22/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Reviewing all company decisions
2. Checking all  loopholes in our model
3. Assignment discussion

Discussion Points:

1. Discussion took place regarding the mission and the vision statement of the company and the name of the company was finalised.
2. We reviewed the decisions taken in each department and ensured correction wherever required.
3. Objectives of the company were finalised.
4. Each department head was given the responsibility of writing in details about the strategies that can be used in our business models.

Action:

1. Each department head prepared the strategy of their respective department.
2. Lahari collating all the documents into one.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 6

Participants:   Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: Mahin,Deepika

Date: 29/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Preparation for simulation

Discussion Points:

1. We simulated to see the results of the round 1 of the business game and to make each member of the team familiar with the business simulation.
2. Discussions took place on how to improve the numbers to get the better results.
3. Simulation was run several times and different results were seen which helped us to work on our numbers in the forecast form

Actions:

1. Simulation done
2. Analysed results

………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Meeting No. 7

Participants:   Gurjot,Ashwin, Lahari

Apologies: Mahin,Deepika

Date: 30/03/2020

Topics Discussed:

1. Preparation for improvised simulation 

Discussion Points:

1. We simulated with changes done in the numbers since our profit was showing as negative and sales were really less.
2. We discussed about the results and worked on the numbers again to get better results.

Actions:

1. Improvised Simulation done
2. Results analysed

13.  APPENDIX 2- PESTEL ANALYSIS

Zippy used PESTEL analysis to understand the European market situation.

PESTEL ANALYSIS
POLITICAL	ECONOMICAL
The BREXIT implementation might affect the European car industry to make gradual boom in short term.	Current economic condition due to pandemic might affect the buyer’s power of purchase.
SOCIAL	TECHNOLOGICAL
Company needs to maintain the current market trends in focus to fulfill the customers’ needs otherwise, it might face lack of interest by its potential target market.	With the change in technology, car industry is changing as well, hence influence of technology must be regularly implanted in the manufacturing products.
ENVIRONMENTAL	LEGAL
The carbon foot prints are becoming the social issue for every industry, most importantly for car manufacturer. Therefore, Zippy must ensure minimum carbon emission while producing the units.	Regulations by the government might affect the company’s operational capability which must be conquered by attaining the proper licensing and following the rules defined by the industry.

Table 8: PESTEL ANALYSIS

 

We had a team game in the class. It was company management simulation. I need to write a Reflective Essay about how we made our decisions and what struggles we had, how we plan our strategy etc. I can explain some details during a chat