Porche: The Cayenne Launch

 MSIT 451 Case Study 1

Porsche: The Cayenne Launch

Problem Statement:

As Porsche moved to the new chapter of its history: launching SUV, the unprecedented challenges make its broaden product portfolio pavement full of controversy and criticism. The problems are as followed:

1. Enter an over saturated SUV market with intensive competition

2. Need to position Cayenne while preserving Porsche brand identity

3. Hard for Porsche’s enthusiasts to recognize Cayenne as real Porsche

4. Online community negative voice about Cayenne

5. Not environment friendly

Recommendations:

After our analysis, we developed following recommendations:

1. Porsche should insist on launching Cayenne. This is a right decision to move to SUV market.

2. Distinct from other SUV brands by keeping the sports feature and combining with large space and speed.

3. Porsche can take a lead on those online debate before the hostilities ruin brand reputation and hurt online community’s harmony.

4. As for environmental friendly, we suggest updating exhaust pipes and developing hybrid Cayenne to decrease gas emission.

Justification:

Observed from Porsche past history, focusing on a sole product line is easily impacted by economic fluctuation. Launching SUV model Cayenne is the right first step to protect the company from market turbulence, since bringing new dimension profit source is good to keep the business stable and robust. Based on the Cayenne’s first year’s sales number which met its target of 20,000. On Rennlist, the gap between positive and negative comments was smaller and smaller with the Cayenne’s release on 2003, suggesting the fact that more and more audience were accepting Cayenne.

It is important to gain more consumers’ insights to help companies better serve the mass audience. Listening to online voice is definitely one of the way to gain those valuable insights. However, listening doesn’t equal to following consumer’s opinions, especially when the company is about to make a new move. Porsche needs to take initiative to those hostilities by giving official responses to those doubts that their enthusiasts raised about Cayenne. Meanwhile, Porsche should add more ‘fun driving’ attributes to Cayenne’s slogan and advertisement, such as sports, better handling, off-road ability.

These years, people put more and more attention on protecting environment, which triggers the development of eco-friendly car. The Cayenne’s launch is the result of satisfying more consumers’ needs for families and outdoor activities. Therefore, it is

natural for Cayenne to cater to the public interests and protect environment with more advanced car designs. Porsche can put more focus on R&D to improve their design on pipes and engines. As a high-end brand SUV, not only should Cayenne fulfill the requirement of state, they should also set their own gas emission standard which should be higher than state’s and other competitors’ such as BMW and Mercedes. At the meantime, hybrid Cayenne could be another smart move for Porsche to consider. Porsche could proudly announce it is more eco-friendly, and people who want to protect environment should try Porsche not only for having a good driving experience, but also for the future of earth.