Automobile Industry Essay

1475 Words3 Pages

PART1:Outline what you consider to be the key features of the global automobile industry In this part of my answer I am going to highlight what I feel the key features / characteristics of the global automobile industry are. First of all I feel that it is important to mention that the actual automobile market itself is very cost and labour intensive,ie, it requires a large amount of labour and money to produce it's products, this is why it is an extremely hard market to penetrate. Examples of where these high intensive elements come from are the following: Labor=> Although the influences of technology are drastically reducing costs of the labor required in manufacturing vehicles, there are still substantial labor costs in designing and making vehicles not to mention the labor costs of getting the technologies repaired etc... Materials=> This includes all the necessary equipment in making cars. Advertising=>Each year car manufacturers spend millions on advertising, (TV commercials, bill boards...). They also spend large amounts of money on market research to determine what customers are looking for when buying their vehicles. This is an element that is ever changing especially in recent years, I will elaborate further in the second part of my answer. Highly competitive industries normally enjoy less profits as a result of the high costs associated with trying to compete. The automobile industry is considered to be an Oligopoly (much like a monopoly,however, instead of one company exerting total control of the market, there are at least two firms doing so), which helps to minimize the effects of price-based competition. Historically automobile manufacturers have tried to avoid price-based competition, but more recently the com... ... middle of paper ... ...een made. There have been many advancements in the automobile industry over the last few years, such as enhanced levels of quality and productivity, cars today are much safer and fuel efficient and this has all been done with out increasing the prices of cars by crazy amounts. The actual automotive work environment has also seen amazing changes, it is now seen as a place of development, new technologies and advanced skill sets. If you look at the industry you can clearly see how ad aptable the industry has been, adding technologies to cars, GPS, WiFi, Iphone connectivity and chargers, Bluetooth and also the innovation of Hybrid cars which is keeping up with the environmentally conscious society in which we live. Although the industry is and has been in a bad patch, I am completely confident that, as a result of it's sheer adaptability, it will eventually bounce back.

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