Hero Honda Case

Indian Institute of Management Kozhikode ePGP 03/ eMEP 10 B Marketing Management

Hero Honda – The Pleasure Scooter

Professor Dr. Atanu Adhikari

Presented By Abhra Debroy (ePGP-03-094) Asha Ramjee (ePGP-03-104) Eldho George (ePGP-03-112) Raymond Amalraj (ePGP-03-150) Vijay Dhanasekar (ePGP-03-188) On 19th December 2010

Hero Honda – The Pleasure Scooter

EMEP10/EPGP03 Batch B

Background Hero Honda the company is a joint venture between Hero Cycles and Honda motors which started in 1984. Hero has traditionally been a cycle manufacturer since 1956 and went on to become the largest cycle manufacturing company in the world by 1996 (in terms of volumes). Hero Honda as a joint venture company started manufacturing motorcycles. They managed to differentiate their product by providing better mileage, low pollution vehicles. The combination of Honda’s technology and the distribution network of Hero complemented by aggressive marketing campaign helped Hero Honda reach from a rank of 87 to 4 among Indian companies within a decade. Hero Honda has established itself as a quality motorcycle manufacturer in the 100 – 150cc bikes segment. Decision issues In 2006 Hero Honda decided to venture into the scooter segment. The gearless scooter was light weight, fuel efficient and has efficient stopgap solutions for punctures while traveling. Given that they were late entrants in the scooter market and the fact that the product was not variedly different from the ones in the market, they had to make sure that the targeted the right market and positioned it appropriately if they wanted to establish themselves in the scooter market. This case make a study based on the data provided and makes a recommendation on the type of market to be targeted and the positioning of the product and the brand image that needs to be created. Recommendation Market segmentation and target The features of the scooter were that it was fuel efficient, light weight, easy to start and park. A...