Thursday, October 18, 2007

Why BMW... ...will not succeed!

Looking at theGSIC Gurgaon skyline while sipping his cappuccino this hot day of July 2007, Peter Kronschnabl, President, BMW India, looks dangerously confident to us, belying all our boastful analytical claims about why BMW will not succeed in making money in India (at least not in the next five years). Does his confidence emanate out of the March 2007 inauguration of BMW’s first plant in India in Chennai? Or is it the fact that India is the second fastest growing car market in the world? Or that the last year has been the most successful ever in BMW’s international 90-year-old history? Well, we weren’t ready to give up investigating...

So what gives, Peter? ForBMW starters, as a cutting edge strategy, Peter is honed on to market BMW’s volume product – the 3 series petrol beast – in two separate segments, the 320i model for the entry level consumers, and the top end 325i for the performance driven. This ‘segmentisation’ within a segment has been a first in this sector, whereas competitors sell only one variant in the bread and butter segments, namely Audi’s A4 2.0 and Mercedes Benz C200. Apparently, BMW will do product differentiation between its top and entry level models for full utilization of the available product line up. But would Indians really care for this ‘differentiation’?

For Complete IIPM Article, Click on IIPM Article

Source: IIPM Editorial, 2006

An IIPM and Management Guru Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri's Initiative

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