Harley Davidson'S Customer-Centered Supply Chain

MAKING MARKETING DECISIONS

Case 5-1 Harley Davidson's Customer-Centered Supply Chain

1. How can Harley Davidson marketing and sales, personnel interact with its purchasing personnel to further strengthen the supply chain and improve customer loyalty?

To further strengthen the supply chain and improve customer loyalty. Harley Davidson marketing and sales personnel must interact with its purchasing personnel to integrate the supply chain from supplier of raw materials and getting the product delivered into the hand of user at the right time, cost and quality user need it. Harley integrated effort must focuses on people, process and technology to improve supply chain development by enhance quality, reduce cost and improve delivery time to make sure every stage of supply chain reach their objective and satisfy customer need and wants.

People

The Supply chain improvement effort involves participation from all Harley productions such as marketing, sales, supplier, engineers, transporter and other involver with Harley. All of them must have the knowledge about customer need and wants.

Marketing and sales personnel must have a good knowledge about customer need and wants. This is to ensure the best information can be transferred to purchasing personnel for making purchasing material that can suite customers need and wants. Harley marketing and sales personnel make a community marketing; they don't just sell a motorcycle but also selling an ownership experience. Harley Davidson delivers membership in a community, arranges adventure tours and sells a lifestyle for the Harley purchaser, it can be concluded total product far exceeds the motorcycle. All activities are to make sure the marketing and sales personnel kumpulkan data about the customer need and want, and easily transfer to purchasing personnel to make development about the material.

Marketing and sales personnel also must make market-based assets, such as strong branding, strong customer base and strong partner networks, when product development from the customer's information database launches the new product introduction. It will help maintain firm performance and greater chance of success, as customers are more willing to try a new offer from a strong brand. This supply chain development through enhance quality, reduce cost and improve delivery time can easily be done if the people in the Harley fully participate to achieve it and indirectly improve customer loyalty.

Process

Harley-Davidson is known for delivering a consistently high quality product. There are a number of different areas in the process that affect their quality, starting with product design. They work to design quality into the products they develop, and they do this through a concurrent pride methodology, which is very specific for both product development and the input that they get on design from marketing and sales people, engineers, manufacturing people, and suppliers. They involve everyone in the early stages, and everyone effectively designs products together to suite customer need and wants and indirectly improves customer loyalty.

Technology

Fast information from marketing and sales personnel is important, so Harley use communication technology via web portal to transform customer buying habits through their dealer and supply chain control for their demand on material. It makes all the material came to factory just in time and safe a lot of money. Just in time inventory was driving force of Harley quality-improvement program. As they operate with lower inventories, it becomes essential that all inventories are usable and it all have to be a good one.

Harley-Davidson could not compete on price against the Japanese motorcycle producers, so it had to establish other market values and improve quality. Harley had to change from a company which dictated what its customers could have to strategies based on direct input from customers. A marketing philosophy was developed based on the customers desires, gathered through surveys, interviews and focus groups. For example Harley image promotes: a mystique appearance, individualism, the feeling of riding free, and the pride of owning a legend. Harley customer relations give a free 1-year membership to the Harley Owners Group (HOG), which was developed in 1983 as a program to keep people active with their Harley and community advertising campaign.

2. What is the role of technology in Harley's supply chain? What additional uses of technology can you identify that might be useful to Harley focus on dealer and ultimate customer?

The role of technology in Harley is to cut on communication and administrative time via their department, suppliers, dealers and customers. Harley use Harley-Davidson Suppliers Network (www.hdsn.com), the portal with web base technology to let all department, suppliers and dealer view purchasing order, inventory and material information order in real time. This should make Harley buying system more efficient, reducing time and reducing the amount of inventory in plant in other worth it enhance quality, reduce cost and improve delivery time.

From the technology Harley can easily identified which dealer have a problem from their database. The company implemented a program to concentrate on helping its dealers develop the up-to-date business skills they need to sell motorcycles more effectively. The headquarters sponsored training programs that call "Harley-Davidson University" via this technology. The dealers are considered to be business partners and the headquarters plays an active role in developing programs, financing improvements, implementing support and management consultants. The dealers also invest their own money into these programs which allows them to feel like apart of the company. Harley-Davidson treats the dealers not only as partners, but also as customers. Harley has developed a very effective marketing strategy, but it is the responsibility of manufacturing to produce high quality

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