Project Motor Cycle

Project Motorcycles

Dr. Marilyn Carroll

Calvin Douglas Hunter

Strayer University

November 1, 2013

Calvin Hunter the president of Honda have shown interested in motorcycles with larger motors and would eventually like to produce motorcycles in the touring class, specifically designed to excel at covering long distances with motors larger than 1100 cc. The proposed target market for these larger motorcycles consists of males between the ages of 35 and 60 in global markets. Price points for the larger motorcycles cover income ranges from $55,000 to $100,000. Management has decided that the company will meet the objectives stated herein within the next five (5) years. During the proposed changeover, the company will continue to manufacture the middleweight cruisers to serve its existing customers.

Honda maintained more than a dozen different product lines, all of which were sold as items in Honda dealerships and privately own dealerships. Honda was now synonymous with quality. This provided management with the luxury of having products that maintained extremely long life cycle in their products. Organizationally Honda has maintained the same structure for more than ten years. The top management of Honda is highly conservative and believed in a marketing approach to find new markets for existing product lines rather than to explore new products.

Under this philosophy, Honda maintained a small R&D group whose mission was simply to evaluate state of the art technology and its application to existing product lines. Unfortunately, the conservative nature of Honda management created a do not rock the boat atmosphere opposed to taking any type of risks. A management policy was established to evaluate all specialty product requests. The policy required answering the following questions. Will the specialty product provide the same profit margin as the existing product lines? What is the total projected profitability to the company in...