Introduction
Hyundai motor company (HMC) has become one of the leading global companies.It has succeeded in making its brand identifiable to the world through its advanced productive technology skills and unique marketing strategies,which both maximize its profit and impact while enhancing its value and image in a global market.This has been supported in the exemplary achievements in foreign countries.According to the Hyundai report (2010),Hyundai productions have been selected as the car of the year in North America,Australia,Middle East or Africa from 2003 to 2007 as well as in Beijing Hyundai Motor Company.Hyundai cars hold the record for exceeding 1 million units in accumulated sales in the shortest period in 2008.Moreover,in 2009 an engine named TAU was selected as a winner of the 10 Best Engines in the world.
This report will demonstrate how the company has been developed as a global product and its ability to generate sales in different markets.
Hyundai motor company background
Hyundai business group is famed as one of Korea’s oldest and most successful family possessed conglomerates.Lansbury,Kwon and Suh (2006) reported that unlike other business groups,the Hyundai group had already more than 60 subsidiary companies and over 200,000 employees in 1997.This represents approximately 18 per cent of Korea’s group domestic product.
The new millennium saw a shift in the Hyundai motor company set up.A new hardline policy by the Korean government implemented measures that prevented South Korea conglomerates from expanding the size and influence in the country.The Hyundai conglomerate was established by Chung Ju-Yung in 1946,as a small auto repair shop,but the company grew enormously through the Korean Government’s support during the civil war.This support resulted in making the Hyundai group’s power much stronger than that of the government.As a result,it was considered an urgent task for the group to be separated into several subsidiaries with independent management.The separated Hyundai motor company (HMC) was launched in 1968 as a complete knock-down assembly under an agreement with the Ford Motor Company (Kim,1998).After accumulating pivotal technology from the country,HMC produced its first originally-designed model named Pony in 1976 and second one,Excel,in 1986 with more than 90 per cent of its parts being sourced locally and exported with a low cost.This success in the exportation of these cars inspired Hyundai Motor Car to make their products more developed.Increased research efforts,combined with the acquisition of advanced automobile technologies and manufacturing processes through joint ventures in several countries.led to improved designs and construction.Kim and Choi,stated (2004) that the company is continuously endeavoring to surpass other automakers in product quality,invest further in the development of innovative products and appeal to the ever growing emerging markets,as well as the rapidly changing global market.
HMC’s Domestic marketing strategy
When the company was established,there was no competitor,which meant that HMC could acquire advanced technical knowledge,heighten the awareness of its brand name to the public and make the use of monopolistic domestic market.Regarding this,Kim (1998) mentioned that HMC can form a task force team to learn a higher prior technical knowledge related to auto mobile production from technically advanced automobile companies including Mitsubishi or Ford in Korean domestic market than other companies such as Daewoo or Kia.
Furthermore,the company could be supported by Korean Government positively.In 1973,the government formulated The Long Term Plan for promotion of the Automobile industry and ordered automobile companies to submit detailed plans to develop Korean Cars.Hyundai submitted its master plan for a new plant with a capacity of 80,000 Koran cars and its actual production in the year was 5,423 cars,which was a drastic departure from strategy of merely assembling foreign cars.During this term,a significant tax reduction and promotion of domestic cars were allowed than imported cars as a protection of the local market and also manufacturing automobile assembly plants could be built with Korean government subsidiaries (Kim,1998).Such above government policy led HMC to make a mount of benefits.