A Report on Marketing Environment parameters affecting Honda Insight’s inroads into the Hybrid Car Market.
Introduction:
As per Kotler, the marketing environment can be defined as ‘The actors and forces outside marketing that affect marketing management’s ability to develop and maintain successful transactions with its target customers.’
We can further classify the marketing environment into 2 subcategories, i.e., Micro and Macro.
Micro Environment can be defined as ‘Forces Close to the organisation, which affect its strategy and ability to serve customers’. [Ref: Marketing by Kotler Et All 2007]
There are 5 types of Micro Environment Parameters, namely:
1. Organisation 2.Competitors 3.Marketing Intermediaries 4.Customers 5.Publics
Macro Environment can be defined as ‘The larger societal forces that affect the whole micro-environment.’ [Ref: Marketing by Kotler Et All 2007]
It can be further classified into the following types:
1. Demographic 2.Cultural 3.Economic 4.Natural 5.Technological 6.Political
Moving on to our case study; we shall look at various environment factors (micro and macro) which played a role in Honda’s insight strategy.
Micro Environment:
• Competitors
According to a report released by JP Morgan in October 2008, global market of hybrid cars will rise exponentially to 9.6 million in 2018 from 500,000 in 2007. Given such a huge market, it opens up opportunities for many players. Toyota Hybrid is the world leader in hybrid cars and faces tough competition from Honda Insight .Although there are other players like GM, Ford etc, but Honda and Toyota are the only ones who deal in the mass production of hybrid cars worldwide.
Honda decided to release a new version with better features and at a very competitive price in Japan and it was a huge success. With their decision to launch in the US market, it is a big threat for Toyota. The top 3 reasons for the instant popularity for Honda Insight and its success in the auto...