Mercedes-Benz marketing campaign in 2018 focused on the effectiveness of the workflow of the different departments the company has in order to cover all needs from sale to delivery. This places high demand on the company's logistics and its documentation. The company has many different solutions including using a bar code for car registration and also the planning for logistics. Mercedes-Benz CPH has a variety of cars including passenger cars, trucks and vans distributed in many areas all over the world by a clear process that makes the workflow goes smoothly. The company depends on the concept of "delivery on time" for ensuring the policy of time saving and to do the work in a smarter way. Barcodes are printed on all the company's product including keys and this helps the company to match its products against each other and present effective service even after sale. According to the company's annual report, its unit sales of 2018 were up by 2.4% to 3.4 million which is better than 2017 that were 3.3 million vehicles sold. Yet, Growth in the Group revenue was about 2% to €167.4 billion which is lower than that of 2017 that was €164.2 billion as well as the company's net profit of 2018 that was €7.6 billion while in 2017 it was €10.6 billion. (Daimler, 2019)
The company can improve the return on investment of its international car launches by applying many different strategies. The company can find lower cost methods for investment or it can use different advertising techniques within an innovative advertising portfolio, it can also make a rebalance for its regularly spending plans and can take advantage of innovative tax efficient strategies for investment and asking special experts who can think long term and find successful innovative ways for facing the new market trends. The company is recommended to use Return on Investment (ROI) as it is one of the most important evaluation metrics and can be effectively used in business analysis. ROI is a performance measure that is used for efficiency evaluation related to an investment or for making comparisons to the efficiency of many different investments. This tool is a powerful one that can evaluate the current information systems of the company and its marketing tools too. It can help in making better decisions and improving the business outcomes. (Andru and Botchkarev, 2011)
The company is recommended to make different developments for the software used in the vehicles prepared to face the current and coming automotive technology and at the same time to reduce costs spent on that technology through finding the most convenient talents who can find new technology that can be less expensive than current technology used. This will need the company to seek software engineers who can apply dynamic work environments related to Silicon Valley startups to the automotive industry. The company can also apply mergers and acquisitions in order to make use of the in-house technical knowledge and experience of other companies. This occurs in many different examples in the automobile sector such as the German supplier ZF Group, that paid US$12.4 billion in 2015 to acquire TRW for purposes of expansion into the electronic safety and connectivity market as it took a 40 % share in vehicle radar supplier Ibeo Automotive Systems in 2016. This can solve challenges related to innovation and stands against the threats profits distribution strategy based on old marketing strategies. The company should give much care to the ethics related to technology use and corporate social responsibility as it should focus on using clear and clean energy in addition to be careful not applying experiments on animals in order to save the environment and keep it safe. It should also give a concern to regulatory issues such as safety and environmental regulations as the company has to realize the different relevant regulations and follow them in order to follow the ethics of the industry and improve the image of its products. The company should also to make different analysis to improve its performance and growth and increase the business revenues. The company has to regard the regulations of different countries all over the world where its products are distributed in order to follow the ethics of the industry and apply it effectively. (campaignlive, 2019)
Part2
Research and feedback overview
An interview was made with CEO of Zawawi Trading Company LLC in Muscat and he stated that the company had a humble start in 1972 and it is now one of the leading companies in the Sultanate that has a business with the leading international brands in the automotive field including Merceden-Benz. He confirmed that there are marketing strategies the company is following in order to increase sales and revenues, he mentioned the strategy of having different divisions for car services calling it the multi-divisional company as there are four main divisions in the company and this helped making the business stronger year after year. He referred to show room division, spare-parts division, pre-owned cars and after sale service division. He explained that each of these divisions can have its own marketing strategies and apply it in a way that can increase revenues and present the product in innovative way. He also referred to the need for teaching employees and engineers in all these divisions how to innovate in the way the products can be developed. He explained that there is a special division for innovative suggestions for marketing the products and developing them. He discussed the importance of innovative means to attract customers and make them realize the benefits they can get from the Mercedes-Benz in particular as engineers can explain this in the company's showrooms and provide effective aftersales facilities that are in Haima and Sohar for supporting Mercedes-Benz owners with the needed expert and prompt service after sale.
He confirmed that all Mercedes-Benz cars presented for sale in Oman are products that need much interest to be well marketed for customers. He mentioned the role of the public relations professionals and their strategic objectives. He stated that the public relations in the company as the PR campaigns aim mainly at targeting customers' needs, motivations, wishes and interests and address them and to reach as many people as possible who have the same interests in relation to automotive products. He also referred to the PR planning strategy that includes many different channels for communication with customers and discussing different details relate to products with them effectively and how to meet the needs of the different scales of customers. He spoke about the new car sales and the innovative ideas the company makes to reach its customers and give them a memorable experience and referred to the Muscat showroom as an example as the place has undergone a full redesign and provided high quality standards in offers, presentation and customer service, this included including new passenger car showrooms in the new facelift and it was extended to have an area for customers and another area for pre-owned Proven Exclusively cars that each target a different scale of customers and give them the needed care before, during and after sale in addition to the Active Service Bay that gives the ZTC customers the opportunity to have full comfort looking into the vehicles with the help of certified technician provided by Mercedes-Benz and are allowed to innovate in the way they explain and suggest ideas on the customers.
He confirmed that Mercedes-Benz has developed its technology highly the latest years stating that the authors' recommendations about technology are very important and needed to add much development in the technology Mercedes-Benz vehicles have as the market is full of innovative cars that run with electricity or that are hybrid in the use of different fuels. He also confirmed on the recommendations suggesting the company's interest in ethics and environment care as old types of fuels such as petrol can be very harmful to the environment and should be replaced by innovative new types such as solar energy and electricity because people began looking for such cars and he suggested that this may be one of the reasons that made sales of Mercedes-Bens reduces in 2019 than 2018 and 2017. He also referred to the recommendation of software development, he confirmed that Mercedes-Benz has added much technology to its different old models and innovated that of the new models in order to cope with needs of the youth and technology in the world. He explained that the younger Omanis prefer sport cars that can endure strong journeys and races and this makes it a necessary for Mercedes to add new technology software to its sports cars in addition to launching innovative sports car models. He also referred to the new channels the PR campaigns reach customers through such as social media channels as they try to understand how the youth thinks and what the preferred types of cares, spares and new software and developments they need to be added to the cars they prefer, they can communicate with the youth and write the reports that are sent to the manufacturing company that regards all needs of customers and then to make developments based on these needs and wishes. He added that the recommendation of applying mergers and acquisitions is a good suggestion that should be presented for the manufacturing company in order to focus on it more in the near future because it can open new innovative channels for more developed and fuel-hybrid cars people will love and find supportive for the environment and safer for their lives and health too. He supported the idea that recommends the company to have many various analysis that can be effective in measuring and evaluating how revenues of the company differed from a year to another and what the factors that affected decline of profits or sales in the recent years. He added that analysis can take various types and should be done by professionals and managers who can also work with the public relations team before launching any campaign in order to coordinate between each other and reach effective solutions that can attract customers and make them more satisfied with the products.
This shows that it is necessary to investigate the market and its new trends, needs and cope with the innovative technology and software that people need for their comfort and safety through their driving experience. The analysis can help in finding out any existing gaps or problems with the current products and then this can help in innovating solutions that can face the cuurent severe market challenges. (Parkin et al, 2017)
References
- Andru, P. Botchkarev, A. (2011). 'A Return on Investment as a Metric for Evaluating Information Systems: Taxonomy and Application.' http://www.ijikm.org/Volume6/
IJIKMv6p245-269Botchkarev566. pdf - Campaignlive, (2019). ' Mercedes-Benz advertising, marketing campaigns and videos.' https://www.campaignlive.co.
uk/the-work/advertiser/ mercedes-benz/7618 - Daimler, (2018). ' Annual Report and Full Year results.' https://www.daimler.com/
investors/reports-news/annual- reports/2018/ - Parkin, R. Wilk, R. Hirsh, E. Singh, A. (2017). ' The future depends on improving returns on capital.' https://www.strategyand.pwc.
com/gx/en/trends/2017- automotive-industry-trends.pdf
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