Morgan Motor Company: Strategic Analysis
Introduction
Morgan Motor Company is a British luxury car manufacturer based in Worcestershire, UK. The company specializes in assembling all cars by hand and manufactures a few hundred cars a month. The first section of the essay will critically evaluate the strategic position of Morgan Cars using appropriate models and theories.
The competitive context of Morgan Cars
Morgan Motors competes in a niche market for luxury cars and on a relatively reasonable price range as their cars are made to be environmental friendly and out-competes its rivals in terms of environmental performance. Charles Morgan, MD of Morgan motors stated, “Other cars are built to price, ours are built to last”.
Porter’s Generic Strategy
According to Porter, a company can be successful if it achieves any one of the generic competitive strategies (Srinivasan, 2008) – cost leadership, differentiation in a broader market or a focus strategy in a narrow market, which help create competitive advantage (Porter, 1985). Morgan motors can be seen as achieving competitive advantage by following a focused differentiation strategy. But its market segment is narrow. The company was always able to fend off any competition with other large car makers due to its unique hand-crafted models. There was no automation of any kind within the automobile plant. This concept shows us that Morgan motors competes on differentiation focus strategy in a narrow market rather than just differentiation in a broad market. Morgan’s competitive strategy can be more elaborated using other strategic concepts. The new insight into environmental friendly automobiles has given the company a genuine edge in this era, where some researchers are talking about sustainability of automotive industry.
The new concept care, LIFE car - a fuel-celled electric vehicle, will be sporting a new lightweight engine as part of its “green” package. Such concepts force the competitors to launch similar technologies. Thus,
Morgan Motor Company is a British luxury car manufacturer based in Worcestershire, UK. The company specializes in assembling all cars by hand and manufactures a few hundred cars a month. The first section of the essay will critically evaluate the strategic position of Morgan Cars using appropriate models and theories.
The competitive context of Morgan Cars
Morgan Motors competes in a niche market for luxury cars and on a relatively reasonable price range as their cars are made to be environmental friendly and out-competes its rivals in terms of environmental performance. Charles Morgan, MD of Morgan motors stated, “Other cars are built to price, ours are built to last”.
Porter’s Generic Strategy
According to Porter, a company can be successful if it achieves any one of the generic competitive strategies (Srinivasan, 2008) – cost leadership, differentiation in a broader market or a focus strategy in a narrow market, which help create competitive advantage (Porter, 1985). Morgan motors can be seen as achieving competitive advantage by following a focused differentiation strategy. But its market segment is narrow. The company was always able to fend off any competition with other large car makers due to its unique hand-crafted models. There was no automation of any kind within the automobile plant. This concept shows us that Morgan motors competes on differentiation focus strategy in a narrow market rather than just differentiation in a broad market. Morgan’s competitive strategy can be more elaborated using other strategic concepts. The new insight into environmental friendly automobiles has given the company a genuine edge in this era, where some researchers are talking about sustainability of automotive industry.
The new concept care, LIFE car - a fuel-celled electric vehicle, will be sporting a new lightweight engine as part of its “green” package. Such concepts force the competitors to launch similar technologies. Thus,
References: Anon, 2009, Green Cars in a Buyer’s Market. Research Reports: American Institute for Economic Research, Dec 2009, Vol. 76 (21), pp. 1 – 3. Anon, 2009, Worth the weight. The Engineer, Sep – Oct 2009, pp. 8 – 8. Jenkins, W., 2004 Towards a strategic framework for competition in multi-product consumer markets. International Journal of Management and Decision Making, Vol. 5 (2/3), pp. 117 – 134. Johnson, et al. 2006, Exploring Corporate Strategy, Prentice Hall: London. McGahan, A.M. (2004), “How industries change”, Harvard Business Review, October. The Morgan wire 2010, Retrieved on January 10, 2010, from http://www.mogwire.com/ Analyzing Resources and Capabilities 2010, Retrieved on January 10, 2010, from http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/grant/files/CSAC05.pdf Strategic clock [image] 2010, Retrieved on January 10, 2010, from http://www.zanthus.com/databank/strategy/images/bowmans_strategy.png Appendix 1: Appendix 2: The Ansoff Product-Market Growth Matrix is a marketing tool created by Igor Ansoff and first published in his article "Strategies for Diversification" in the Harvard Business Review (1957)