Product development challenge in developing economies for multinational automobile companies

Abstract

India is frequently recognized as a growing economy. Propelled by the economic and technological advancement, India is going through fast motorization; which in turn symbolizes this country as a lucrative marketplace for automobile giants across the globe. After liberalization many foreign players have entered India and are still expanding in this marketplace. Entry of diverse players increased the product availability and product variety to a large extent in both passenger and commercial segments. As the product variety increases consumers get more options, the competition gets intense and strategic decisions in introducing new products becomes the most important thing to research. The primary business objective behind these strategies is to increase market share and attain volume growth. Operational excellence alone will not win the battle anymore, because production technologies along with high productivity practices are almost common across companies. Product offering plays an important role in today’s scenario. Product life is getting shorter and cannibalization is being adopted widely. To launch the right product at the right moment is getting extremely crucial. As consumer’s buying preference behavior is highly influenced by cultural, social, economic, environment, personal and psychological factors and most of these factors are uncontrollable and beyond the hands of marketers, they have to be considered while trying to understand consumer preferences. In this study, we are trying to find out and emphasize the key factors responsible for successful product development in emerging economies like India.