INTERNATIONAL MARKETING STRATEGY

International Marketing Strategy

International Marketing Strategy

Introduction

Ford Motor Company is one of the premier automotive manufacturing companies in the world. It is most famous for demonstrating the strengths of mass-production assembly lines when it was founded in the early 1900s. Today, it is the world's largest truck maker and the one of the biggest maker of cars, second only to General Motors. Some the brands it makes cars under include Jaguar, Lincoln and Volvo; the company is also well known for its own Taurus and F-Series pickup (Hoover's, 2000). Most notable has been its success with the sports-utility vehicle (SUV) market: its introduction of the Explorer led to rapid growth in the sales of this new breed of vehicles. Visit

External Environment

The bursting of the IT bubble has forced IT companies all over the world, particularly in the United States, to write-off billions of dollars. One estimate is that IT companies have lost US$ 1 trillion. The accompanying collapse of global stock markets has eliminated an additional US$ 11 trillion from share prices since their peak in 2000.

September 11 and its aftermath

Prior to the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, there were some signs of recovery. Inflation was low, giving banks the chance to adjust. Interest rates had been substantially cut and the response by economies was positive. The terrorist attacks have caused tremendous losses to the finance industry. The global airline industry has cut back hugely. Components suppliers have been hit. But it is continuing political uncertainty that is taking the highest toll. The car industry has not been too badly affected by the depressed global economic scenario, although there have been slight declines in sales in the United States and Europe.

The power of environmental regulations

Due to the spread of environmental concerns, specifically, there are numerous regulations addressing the environmental impacts associated with automobiles. In the United States, the Federal Clean Air Act (CAA) imposes strict emission standards on all new vehicles. Within the next handful of years, emission standards for trucks shall severely tighten; this change will require manufacturers to upgrade technology to make their products meet these new standards. This is putting pressure on companies to do more research to allow them to attain compliance (Ford, 2000c).

Ford faces an uncertain and rapidly changing automobile market. The ever-important North American market, after one the most historic periods of economic growth, is finally starting to show signs of slowing down. Internationally, new markets are beginning to open up, most notably in China. The European Union is currently undergoing a conversion to the Euro, from Dollar a process that is shaking up the way global businesses operate in Europe, including Ford. Amid this turmoil, Ford finds itself coming out period of globalizing its operations: it finds the strategy has reduced costs, but has left it without a competitive understanding of regional markets.

Ford operates in an extremely competitive environment. First, although there are no more than a handful of firms comparable to Ford, rivalry is ...