Harley Company, Assessment Example

Introduction

In the year 2005, the $5.34 Harley motorcycle company emerged the leading industry with over 50 % market shares. Notably, the company did enjoy the immense loyalty of the brands valued at $ 7,739 million from the $ 7346 in the year 2004. In addition, the Harley Company gained ground and rose to a prosperous ladder to attain the 46 worldwide in position in the year 2004. (Hartz, 2009, p.245). Despite of the company being one of the known motorcycle producer in the world, it did embrace American values and culture.

Since the customers prefer to put their money on a more durable commodity, they made Harley a first choice for their money (Zack, 2010.p.168). The basics operating principles of the Harley Company had its uniqueness in the retailing, price factors, and good market relationships. Similarly, with the dynamics of technology, Harley again changed accordingly, ensuring maximum fit in the market arena.

In 1990s and 200s, the company was flying high with good uniqueness and high growth selling milieu. In the analysis of the background, it is noted that the company commenced in 1903 by William, Arthur, and Walter who were brothers. In this account, the company started its advertisement in the years 1907, because of its faster growth in the market. The growth of the company was further propelled with the two world wars. After decades of years, the vehicle became rampant, which forced the motorcycle to be recreational machines. By 1957, still, the Harley Company was actively innovating and inventing new models as the Sportster model. Following the above, the idea of leather coats and ridding boots came into existence, and if that was not enough; the Harley Company went public in the year 1965.

Generally, the Harley Company expanded its market due to its durable machines and so many went for their products including the US police service. With the start of motorcycle sport, Harley dominated the entire US market.

Harley Davidson being a most powerful motorcycle in the US, it was mandatory for them to enhance and sustains its competitive position in the business field. Therefore, here are the basic procedures that made it possible for the company to effective maintains its market:

Process Design

The company used an H-D technique to effectively rebuilt methods that will relevantly reduce the implementation cost. The above process was possible due to the invention of designs like the CAD/CAM designs. In this case, the process was designed to sub-assemble and pull components to enhance the final demand. However, the above effectively eliminated the costly inventories in order to create the availability of a wide market.

Business Process

Harley embraced a non-hierarchical structure that involved the team management structure that initiates acceleration of innovation as well as motivation and learning. The system was a team-based organization, which fortunately reduced the cost of upper level management. In this regards, the management style was of considerable importance since it helped in the elimination of the waste steps, quality enhancement as well as the pare costs.

Product Design

Since the Harley Company embraced the US traditional culture, this did minimize the complexity of the manufacturing process. Harley did manufacture only three categories of the heavy bikes (Shitlett, 2008.p.362). In addition, they also manufacture, designed, and sold performance motorcycles and customs. As a result, the company made a high improvement to 28 models of customs, Harley, and touring motorcycles. The above was as a result to satisfy effectively the more demand of Europeans tastes in the market. For instance, the Harley Company valued the fact that design was a core factor in promoting the market (Hoskisson, 2007.p 256). In this case, HD designed bicycle, despite the fact that it was not luxurious and on the other hand, was not a good performance bike; customers liked it so much since the design was appealing.

Economies of Learning

Thus, the above factor played a crucial factor in the sustenance and enhancement of the Harley competitive position. Despite the fact that Harley had to in-cooperate other different companies in their market with the aim that the companies will aid in the technological development, it did not implement the original significance changes of the designs. In this regard, the Harleys technicians did not learn new procedures regularly due to reluctance of the Harley to learn new technological change (Alexander, 2007, p.163). Unfortunately, Harley lagged behind in the technological arena since they were not ready to embrace technology. Therefore, the motorbikes they produced were of old-style.

Input Costs

The company ensured close relations with the relevant key suppliers, which did share information as well as improving the purchasing power, ideas and establishing good strategy with the supplier. In addition, transportation was not expensive since all the suppliers were located only 160 miles (Grant, 2009, P. 125). Therefore, the delivery of the products was in a timely manner that impressed the customers. To curb it all, the Harley Company did open a development center in Milwaukee, which shortened the time for the products to get to the market. It is true that the Harley Company was remarkably stable with a well-organized system of governance.

References

Alexander, P. (2007). Strategy of Harley. New York, NY: Cengage Publishers.

Grant, R. M. (2009). Cotemporary strategy Analysis. Mailden, MA: Blackwell publishers.

Hartz, D. (2009). Pride-Ferrell Foundations of Marketing. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.

Hoskisson, R. (2007). Competing for Advantage, revised. New York, NY: Cengage Learning.

Shitlett, D (2008). Boomers in hog heaves. New York, NY: Wall Street Journals.

Zack, M. (2010). Knowledge and Strategy. London: Elsevier.