Volkswagen Group: Driving Big Business with Big Data Case Solution And Analysis, HBR Case Study Solution & Analysis of Harvard Case Studies

What is the landscape of the global automobile industry? How did the VW Group’s position evolve over the years?

The global automotive industry has experienced rapid growth, especially in the light vehicle segment and the proof of this fact is the sale of 73.2 million units in the year 2009. However, the important thing is the growth of light vehicles in the emerging markets that surpassed the sales as compared to the rest of the world. As of current scenario around 83.5 million units have been sold and the figure is expected to reach 117 million marks by the end of year 2020. Asia is considered as the most enraging market for light vehicles as the estimated scenario indicates that around 56% of sales will emerge from the Asian market by the end of year 2020. However, China is one of the most significant markets in this regard and will account for 35% of the sales in the Asian region[1].

There are two notable trends that are apparent in the global automotive industry that includes that the top three positions are secured by Toyota, GM and Volkswagen and the order of position changes frequently.[2] Volkswagen is expected to hold dominance in emerging markets like China as the trends like sales dominance and expectation of sales primacy in China favors Volkswagen. Production has been the major focus of the company since its inception and the reason the company has been quite successful till now. The German origin of the company and the majority stake holding of Porsche SE is the proof that the company is best at delivering quality[3].

The company started by designing affordable cars, but later on diversifying its focus on enhancing the product portfolio and creating new brands leveraging mergers, and acquisitions. Some of the major examples of the company’s mergers and acquisition strategy include swiping Daimler-Benz, Audi, and a major joint venture with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation[4]. The company has been quite successful in its strategy that has allowed the company to introduce multiple brands in its portfolio and allowed it to cater multiple segments[5]. According to some experts in the industry Volkswagen is expected to take control of most of the emerging markets and in China it will be able to create supremely in some of the categories like passenger vehicles in which the company is still the largest producer[6].[7]

What is VW Group’s Strategy 2018?

Volkswagen 2018 strategy exhibits four strategic goals that are set to be achieved by the end of year 2018 and will facilitate the company in becoming the global leader in terms of economic and environmental perspective.

Furthermore, the major aim is to become the world’s finest and successful automobile manufacturer in correspondence to the above stated goal. However, the defined goals and objectives of the company include becoming world leaders leveraging innovation and technology and to achieve high levels of quality and customer satisfaction. Secondly, to increase sales and reach the target of 10 million units every year and acquiring a significant share in emerging markets. The last two goals are to increase ROS before tax to 8% and to become the most attractive employer in the industry. However, the key points on which the strategy is focusing include customer satisfaction, innovation and technology, profit maximization, workplace enhancement and standardization of processes[8].

What is big data? What role could big data play in this strategy?

Big data allow high volume, wide variety and high velocity of data or information to be processed effectively and in a cost-effective manner that can facilitate firms in gaining deep insight of data after analyzing it that can further be used to facilitate decision making. Big Data has a major role to play in helping Volkswagen achieve the objectives of its 2018 strategy. The company’s target needs production efficiency and in order to achieve that it is important that managers and the workers at the facility have a complete insight of the progress. Therefore big data can play a vital role in helping the managers to keep a track of the progress and leveraging big data analytics analyze the performance as well. Large quantities of data can be secured after mining that can be managed easily and later on analyzing the performance. Thus the company will be able to identify the shortcomings and will reevaluate the targets in order to achieve the set goals at the due date...................

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