Aston Martin’s Global Luxury Legacy

Company Overview

Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is one of the well-known automobile manufacturers in the whole world and was founded by Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford in 1913. It is recognized as a self-reliant producer of luxury cars and grand tourers having their headquarters at Gaydon, United Kingdom. Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC has its presence in 53 countries across the world through 160 car dealerships making them a global automobile brand. The sports cars manufactured by the company have always been a symbol of the British culture for a long time (Essamri, McKechnie, and Winklhofer, 2019). Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC for its outstanding contribution to international trade received the Queen's Award for Enterprise in the year 2003. The company looked forward to expanding its brand and tried its hands in different sectors like real estate, manufacturing of submarines, and aircraft and they even explored the retail industry. The company had gone bankrupt a number of times in its history.

Strategic Issues

Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC has been facing some issues which have been affecting their operational activities. One of the prime strategic issues that have been identified by the company is the issue pertaining to sustainability and that is considered as a multi-fold issue (Dey et al. ,2020). The main fuel used by the automobiles manufactured by the company is petroleum which has limited reserves and is expected to get exhausted in the next 70 years. Again the issues of emission of CO2, a greenhouse gas on the burning of petroleum has added more to the woes for the company. The next strategic issue that has been identified by Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is the direct competition with the public transportation system. The inclusion of the conventional cab services and carpooling facilities offered by UBER, for example, have significantly reduced the traveling expenses for the passengers and in turn, considerably reduced the pollution to some extent. So this sudden inclination of the consumers towards the public transportation system has affected the sales of the company as well as it has affected the overall automobile industry (Coulson-Thomas, 2019). The third strategic issue as identified by the company is the reduced international trade due to the increasing tensions between the US and China and Europe has been deliberately brought into the scenario. The US policy to increase tariffs on European automobiles has affected the overall global automobile industry and it has been no different for Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC (Huggins et al. 2019).

Scenario Analysis

Macro Environment Analysis

PESTLE Analysis

Porter’s Five Forces Analysis

Challenges Encountered

The challenges identified by Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC are quite diverse and some of them are quite crucial with respect to the manufacturing and sales process of the company. The company has rightly identified the environmental issues concerning vehicular emissions leading to global warming which has been a major challenge for the company for a long time (Alouini, 2020). Adopting sustainable measures by concentrating more on the R&D process has been one of the ways in order to address this challenge even though it proves to be a costly one. The next challenge as identified by Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC is the low cash reserves due to reduced sales of their automobiles and high inventory stock. The company also has a huge amount of debts in the market that needs to be cleared. The existing models of the cars manufactured by the company have failed to draw the attention of the customers (Candelo, 2019). The third challenge for the company has been its inability to fragment the global trade due to the introduction of Brexit in the UK as the UK market is one of the promising markets for Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC.

Detailed Analysis of the Challenges

SWOT Analysis

Marketing Mix

The Marketing Mix of Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC elaborates on the marketing strategies of the company and looks into the four aspects of marketing that are product, price, promotion, and place which makes the company a globally renowned brand.

Scenario Planning

Solutions to Address the Identified Challenges

McKinsey’s 7S Framework

Porter’s Value Chain Analysis

Implementation of One Solution from the Identified Solutions

MOST Analysis

Mission

The main mission for Aston Martin Lagonda Global Holdings PLC will be to create a business environment that would promote the idea and concept of sustainable development to increase sales without decreasing the brand value. The mission aims to increase the competitive advantage for the company.

Objectives

Strategies

The strategies that will be taken by the company are as follows:

The first and foremost strategy that will be opted by the company will be to develop a sustainable development plan which will help the company in order to achieve sustainability and taking care that all the activities of the company are environmentally friendly and have a negligible impact on the ecosystem.

The second strategy that will be followed by the company is to clear the high inventory and implement recycling measures in order to recycle the unused and old parts and ancillaries. This strategy will help the company to reduce waste generation and will also help in the effective disposal of buildup stocks.

The third strategy will be to increase the competitive value of the company by making the prices of the automobiles more competitive and within the reach of a large potential customer base. This will help the company to build a stronger and loyal relationship with the customers and also will help to enhance the propositional value of the products offered by the company.

The fourth strategy will be focusing more on marketing activities and to explore the unexplored global markets in order to expand the base of the company. The company will be focusing more on strategic marketing plans and will be concentrating more on digital marketing in order to reach out to a wider customer base and endorse their products and services.

The fifth and the final strategy will be to employ highly skilled personnel who will be trained with the details of the innovative implementations in the global automobile industry. The company will focus on the skill development programs of the existing staff in order to build a highly trained and skilled workforce that will have the expertise and intelligence to innovate and will help in the progress and growth of the company.

Tactics

The following tactics will be adopted by the company in order to keep a track of the progress of the project:

The very first tactic that the company will employ is the monitoring of the different activities pertaining to the project after every six months in order to evaluate the progress of the project. The evaluation will look into the details of whether every strategy is being followed or not.

A feedback system will be there in order to receive feedback from the staff involved in the different activities of the project and look into the proposals given by them. The company will review the feedback and implement the necessary changes that will help to achieve the objectives of the project.

The next tactic of the company will be to deliver the product as a single entity and not in parts as it would increase the overall costs of the production. The measures to integrate the different parts into a single product will employ the optimal methods in order to reduce the expenses of production.

The final tactic that the company will utilize is to do constant market research to look into all the possible demands and needs of the global market research. The company will utilize all the available market research data in order to analyze its competitive advantage in the market which will help the company to devise strategic plans in order to help the company to grow and progress.

References

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