Marketing Plan For Toyota Prius In Oman From June 2018 To May 2021

Introduction and objectives

Discuss about the Unique Source of Historical Information on Automotive.

The automobile industry is currently one of the rapidly growing sectors that incorporates a wide range of organisations and companies that are involved in the manufacturing, developing, designing, selling and marketing of different motor vehicles(Shende 2014). Toyota is highly known all over the world for its premium and luxury cars and is one of the leading organisations under automobile industry. In the Oman region, the company is actively operating its business since its emergence. The new hybrid Toyota Prius is one of the most trusted brands in Oman and was first introduced in the year 2011 (Sexton and Sexton 2014). It is a subsidiary company that is owned by the parent company based in Japan, Toyota Motor Corporation. This paper is going to elaborate on developing a marketing plan for Toyota Prius for June 2018 to May 2021.

Nissan- The highly efficient production system of this brand is giving it a competitive advantage over the other brands in the market segment of Oman (Finster and Hernke 2014). It has opened up many official showrooms in the city in order to increase its grip in the market and allow more number of customers to test drive the cars of Nissan.

Audi- Audi has entered into the Oman market with an objective of acquiring a large share of the market. It has a brilliant exteriors that are sophisticatedly designed and lined (Buckingham and Al-Athway 2016). The brand has the ability to provide a good resale value because of the brand recall and good design in the Oman market.

BMW- BMW is on the strongest competitors of Toyota Prius existing in Oman. It is on a constant planning of finding out new solutions and innovative designs in order to attract more customers of Oman towards its products and services (Liu 2015). With the same, the company is also engaged in both new as well as pre-owned luxury car segments that is allowing the business of the company to have more affect in the luxury car segment of the company.

1. Strengths-One of the major strengths of the Toyota Prius is that the brand is environment conscious and also provides reduced carbon emission (Finster and Hernke 2014). In Oman, Toyota Prius is equipped with latest models of cars that is opening up a wide number of choices for the citizen. With the same, it is also to note that the customer service executives of the company are very customer friendly and they effectively answers every queries of the customers as the company conducts training programs for them to attend the customers. The supervisors and the technicians of the company also undergo internal trainings from their regional centre.
2. Weaknesses-Being one of the hybrid models, Toyota Prius, there is a huge demand for Toyota Prius among the customers but the company is facing challenges in delivering their orders within the specified time frame. This is considered to be the biggest weakness of it by the customers. Along with that it is slightly high in price when compared to the other petrol variants in the Oman market.
3. Opportunities- There are several opportunities present for Toyota Prius in the Oman region. One of them is that it could highly gain from the first movers’ advantage in the hybrid segment. With the same, it is to note that Oman is rapidly expanding and it is expected that the registration of the vehicles in the Oman market would get increased by 7.5 percent per annum (Tofigh and Abedian 2016). Furthermore, in political context, Oman’s government of Sultanate has become a refined economic state that is motivating the entrepreneurships and investments.
4. Threats-The high maintenance cost of the brand has the possibility to defer their customers. Also, the emergence of new entrants in the same segment who would offerlower price and better features to the customers (Porter and Heppelmann 2014). This will affect the profitability of the Toyota Prius.

1. Bargaining power of the buyers- Buyers in Oman are indirectly affecting the business of the Toyota through revenues. The low switching cost that is enabling the customers to easily change their preferences from Toyota to other brand at no extra cost, high quality of information and the moderate substitute availability are the major contributors to the powerful bargaining power of the customers in the environment of automobile industry (Wu, Guo and Shi 2013).
2. Bargaining power of the suppliers- The suppliers of the Toyota Prius aim at influencing the company to improve its business. There are several external factors that are contributing to the weakness of the bargaining power of the suppliers for the automobile industry in Oman (Danese, Romano and Formentini 2013). They are of the high overall all supply, moderate suppliers’ population and the low forward integration of the suppliers.
3. Threat of new Entrants- The new entrants have the full potential to influence the business of Toyota. The high cost of maintaining, growing and establishing a new company in the automobile industry is a significant entry barriers (Porter and Heppelmann 2015). They are weakening the impact of the new entrants on the companies such as Toyota in Oman.
4. Threats of substitutes- The substitutes are affecting the business of the Toyota Prius through competing with the product of the company. The low switching cost that is allowing the customers to go for some other options in the market, the moderate availability of such substitutes and the very low convenience in using the substitutes are some of the external factors in the automobile industry that are contributing as a threat of substitute for the company in Oman (Wind and Rangaswamy 2013).
5. Industry rivalry- There is a strong force of competition for the company in Oman. There are various competitors existing there for Toyota Prius including Nissan, Mercedes and Audi (Fleming 2015). They are aggressive against each other in context to factors like marketing and innovation. With the same, it also competes with several firms that differentiate in terms of fuel efficiency, electronics, brand image, style etc.

The process of dividing the market consisting of potential customers into different segments or groups on the basis of different characteristics.

Geographic segment- Until now, Toyota Prius has very limited operation with the boundaries of Oman and it in Muscat, Salalah and Sohar (El-Refaie 2013).

Psychographics- The early adopters and the technology pioneers; the environment friendly people and the ones who look for ideal combination of the low maintenance cost car are the three types of customer who are likely to buy Toyota Prius (Eneizan et al. 2016).

Current Market and Company Situational analysis

Demographics- The buyers of Toyota Prius are mainly the people who belong from the age group of 30 to 60 years. They are usually the educated adults who are well aware of the impact of the hybrid cars in the environment. Along with that, the income level of the buyers is to be the strivers (10,941$ to 21,882$) and the seekers (4,376$ to 10,941$). Hence, it can be said that they would belong from the upper middle class and would have the occupations where they belong to professional or managerial positions.

Behavioural –The business needs to analyse the behaviour of its customers so that if any problems are present in the market, they could resolve it as soon as possible. It would lead the company towards growth and business.

1. Increasing the market share by 3 to 5 percent.
2. Increasing revenues by 5 to 10%.
3. To become top of mind for the hybrid cars in Oman within 3 years.
4. Educating and delivering the people of  Oman about the concept of green lifestyle
5. Increasing its brand awareness among the target audiences by 80% and establishing a distinctive brand image through creating brand awareness programs.
6. The market share of Toyota Prius at present is about 0.005%. Hence, it is aiming of increasing it to 5% within the coming 3 years.
7. Occupying a leading position in the automobile industry through conducting some trade shows.

Pricing strategies- Price refers to the cost that the customers pay for buying a specific item. It is determined through various factors including the competition, product identity, market share, the perceived value of the customers of a product etc. The pricing strategy the Toyota makes use of is that it has set the price of Toyota Prius from 9,300 OMR to 10,200 OMR. The commercial price of the car is because of the basic price + custom tax + other taxes such as PajakKendaraanBermotors etc.

Product strategies- Toyota is committed to all its customers to deliver them the best customer experience in order to enhance their customer experiences (Osborne, Radnor and Nasi 2013). They treat their customers as if they are the true boss of the company so that to improve their satisfaction level. They are continuously working in improving their products with adding innovative ideas. They also need to focus on measuring the satisfaction of their customers for the same so that they could make changes in their products according to the needs of the customers. After all, it is because of the buyers that a business operates successfully in the market.

Placement Strategies- Toyota Prius is available at all the major cities of Oman including the Muscat, Salalah and Sohar and it is also planning to extend its market at other cities as well and over all the country.  

Promotion Strategies- The business would use the concepts of public relations (PR), sales promotion, personal selling and the advertising. These are very important in the modern world of today where each and every one make use of the social networking strategy for both selling and buying of the promotions. With the same, every individual today is equipped with smart phones and they make use of internet every now and then for their different needs. Hence, promoting the business through different social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Also, the social media sites are one of the most efficient mean to monitor and track the satisfaction level of the customers (Malthouse et al. 2013).

Competitors

The core strategy of Toyota Oman is to dominate the economy segment. It concentrates on the B2B and B2C segments. It also has different strategies for different ethnic groups and for different business segments such as that of flit vehicle owners.

1. Toyota could conduct several trade shows to promote its Toyota Prius in the Oman market in order to encourage the citizens and the target audience to visit the place and try a test drive. It could conduct several events as well as to attract the customers and to educate them about their services and offerings.
2. The company could also develop the feedback service for the customers where there could provide both their positive and negative feedbacks so that through them the company could both get motivated and make necessary changes for better performance and sales of their products
3. It could also provide the customers with several different winning chances so as to attract more attractions and attentions of the customers present around the market (Farahani et al. 2014). It could also make use of trade shows and online promotional campaigns for the advertisements of the Toyota Prius around the country.
4. To the customers, to whom the company has sold its cars, it could conduct a free service week so as to receive their feedbacks on the product.

6.1. Annual sales analysis- Analysis of the annual sales would help the company to compare the actual sales of the company with the expected sales. With the same, the company could also do the analysis of the market share and compare its average sales with the ones of its competitors. It would further assist the company inn conducting financial analysis along with comparing all the details in terms of finance with the market (Chung, Steenburgh and Sudhir 2013). This in turn would help it inn identifying its weaknesses over its competitors in its operation and could also monitor its organisational performance. Furthermore, it is also to note that the annual sales analysis will assist in identifying the threats and opportunities present for the company along with the training requirement and the market trends as well.

6.2. Profitability control-It would assist the managers of the Toyota in designing the profit plans and plan the targeted sales (Pazarceviren and Celayir 2014). It also helps in controlling the waste and other related cost. When the managers will define the individual responsibilities of each of the employees working the organisation, it would assist the company in taking necessary actions for achieving a long term success.

6.3. Efficiency control-The sales executives and the managers of the company through efficiency control could easily calculate the efficiency of the sales call per day along with the customer lost and gains, average costs and the percentage of the contracts. Adverting efficiency could be calculated through keep on checking the percentage of customer noted to advertisements, their attitudes as well as their opinions (Shrum, McCarty and Lowrey 2015). Furthermore, the distortion efficiency could be calculated through the percentage of orders that are delivered correctly on time.

6.4. Strategic control-Toyota could calculate the strategic control by reviewing the market for the businessalong with thestructure of the internal organizational, the existing suppliers and distributors and most importantly the prevailing competitorsas well as the customers who could be targeted (Gawer and Cusumano 2014). It would assist the company managers to monitor that the organisational operation is running according to the vision, mission and objectives of the company and that it is continuously updating about the information systems to the business so that to resolve the issues if present in the market.

SWOT analysis

The promotional and advertising tools that are to be used and their budgets s of 2018 are described in the table below.

Table 1: Budget plan for Toyota Prius

References

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