Ch. 14 - Marketing Channels and Retailing

Yamaha Motor Company can count of many retailers for selling its products. In the immediate New York and New Jersey area there are eight dealers that promote Yamaha brand and competitors. I recently visited New York Honda Yamaha, a retail shop located in Long Island City that happens to be the number one volume dealer in the Tri-state region.

After being welcomed by one of the employees that showed me around the store i immediately realized why NY Honda Yamaha is well awarded. As Yamaha Motor Company, their mission statement is concerned towards Customer Satisfaction which they show with their knowledge regarding all products they have in store. The sales people don't give any pressure at all and they are ready to help potential customers to find the bike that better fits their needs.

They are primarily Yamaha and Honda dealers so all new bikes are from these two major brands, but they also carry used bikes from different brands. I was interested from where they get their bikes: primarily they're coming from Japan but even more interesting is how different categories of bikes such as maxi-scooter and naked bikes are coming from Europe, where this models are very successful. The bikes are exposed in order and their look is more fascinating then ever.

As well as being a dealer, New York Honda Yamaha provides assistance to its customers having in store a well furnished garage. All new and used bikes are provided with meticulous assistance and the bike doesn't leave the store until it's 100% safe to ride. They provide parts and accessories as well for all their products. In store they have a small gears section where helmets, leather suits and other gadgets are being sold. If a product is not available, they're ready to order it for the customer. The availability and courtesy that this dealer provides it's a tremendous advantage for their business and being the number one in the Tri-state region its self explanatory. Customers looking for a new bike are seeking people that are able to walk them all the way through the purchase of the bike of their dreams and Yamaha Motor Company has well trained their dealers in order to achieve this goal.

Ch. 6 - Consumer Decision Making

Nowadays customer research gives valuable data relating to customers in order to make a decision regarding the product they will buy. Yamaha YZR R1 target market is mostly a male population, motorcyclists from all over the world involved in track and road riding. Consumers are empowered to make the right decision when it comes to purchase a new bike, spending a considerable amount of time researching and expecting from the manufacturers to give them the best technology. When they choose the bike of their dreams, the customers finally looks for the best financial option available,  demanding fast service. However, Yamaha Motor knows that their target market is the same as their main competitors such as Honda, Suzuki, Kawasaki and Ducati: Yamaha have to create a special need to their future customers in order to gain their attention because their competitors won't just sit and look at them.

With the knowledge that consumers will spend lots of time researching information's regarding the bike, Yamaha had the R1 being tested and reviewed by the main motorcycles magazines and websites, including technical details about the bike that has being tested several times on track and first impressions by test Rider. Also, Yamaha Motor Company can count on an important racing heritage that has an effective effect on the Customer, having the YZR R1 being developed by 9 times MotoGP World Champion Valentino Rossi and 4 times AMA Superbike Champion Josh Hayes, involved as well in promoting the bike through track test and interviews where they speak about the potential of the new R1. The making of Technical Commercials on the web contributes to strengthen Customers decision.  The release of these data have a tremendous impact on Customer's opinion that through this external information research has all the necessary resources to evaluate and purchase the bike. The final step in this process is to find the most adequate financial proposal by visiting the retailer that will give the customer the best advantage as service and price.

Ch. 5 - Developing a Global Vision

Yamaha Motor Company its a global motorcycle manufacturer established in 1955 upon separation from Yamaha Corporation and its products are present in more then 180 countries and region, consolidating its unique position in the Motorcycle Market.

Yamaha Motor have major factories worldwide, mostly concentrated in Japan, India, Europe and North America. This show a perfect example of Global Marketing Standardization where Yamaha Motor maintains its product uniform all over the world. A key for the worldwide company success it's its partnership with Hewlett Packard for the improvement of their IT system to support global business operations resulting in an improvement in reliability through the system life cycle to support global businesses and more efficient maintenance to reduce effort and cost when introducing new international branches. In India, where sales are 43.1%, Yamaha Motor has made sustained investments in developing and implementing an effective business contingency plan as well as measures for recovery of IT infrastructure and operations.

A factor that differentiate Yamaha Motor worldwide is the culture of where its products are sell. European and North American market focus their selling mostly on supersport product such as the R1 and similar because of the widely popular Racing Heritage of its sports team while in Asia, especially India and Japan, Yamaha Motor promote traffic units less powerful and more manageable in the highly busy Asian cities.

The purpose of Yamaha in being global is to be a corporate group that people always look to for the next advances and innovations by listening to the necessities of its customers in each market and build and supply products that fit the realities of the specific markets, as well as incrementing their profits that are increasing consistently year after year.

Ch. 4 - The Marketing Environment

Motorcycling in America is more for sport than for transportation, and it's more popular with all ranges of society than at any other time. Much of the growing popularity with motorcycles is from people well into their careers and Yamaha Motor Company understood that, mainly targeting customers in their late 30s through their mid 50s, as known as Generation X and Y. The expanding popularity of motorcycling and a growing desire for new and ever-better products matches the Yamaha YZR R1 marketing strategy that spares no expense in its pursuit of excellence. Supersports category is becoming more selective and defined, with many customers opting to ride a specifically designed road  bike on the road and a track bike on race circuits. Also, according to the American Motorcyclist Association (AMA), one out of every twelve U.S. motorcycle owners is female which is about 8 percent of the nation's motorcycle owners. A very important statistics for a potential slice of the market that keeps increasing year after year and shows how the scenario is evolving. The new R1 purpose and design philosophy are entirely different based on this new Marketing needs. Featuring sophisticated MotoGP derived technology, this new machine is a purely focused sport bike that has been developed both for road and track.

Yamaha Motor Company can count on several events in the U.S. to target and convince potential customers at the Circuit of The Americas (Austin, Texas) and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (Indianapolis, Indiana), where two races of the MotoGP World Championship are held every year. In such events many Fans, Motorcycle Enthusiasts and Riders comes from all over the U.S. and Yamaha Motor Company as well as its main competitors are able to manage showcases to introduce their brand new products to convince the audience over the race event Weekend.

Despite the growing popularity, motorcycling is not an expensive activity in the United States considering that, always according to the AMA, its member-riders earn an average household income of $84,000, and own 2.6 motor-cycles where they spend an average of $800 a year on maintenance items and do about sixty percent of the work on their own bike. They also spend approximately $1,200 a year on apparel and accessories. All of this is facilitated by the web where potential customers can do basic research about the product they're interested in, get the answers about their specific needs and eventually being able to access to it.

Ch. 3 - Ethics & Social Responsibility

Yamaha Motor Company has operate to create distinct values through engineering, manufacturing and marketing based on its Corporate Mission by providing new excitement and a more exciting life for people all over the world. 

      The Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is to be expected by a company such as Yamaha Motor because it can contribute to sustainable development of society through its business activities based on its “Corporate Philosophy". The approach to CSR it's being shared by Yamaha Motor Company with all its employees so they can applying it in their daily routine at work. 

The presence of the Risk Management and Compliance Committee is a system for controlling risks and its duty is to oversee hazards faced by the company and it moves to forbid major accidents, identifying and evaluating dangers and the measures to overcome them by creating risk management regulations and initial emergency response regulations as its main procedures. 

 Yamaha Motor is enforcing the creation of safer working environments to detect potential dangers or harmful conditions by taking measures to prevent accidents on the workplaces. Thanks to job-specific education and training, such as safety manager training programs and skill improvement programs for supervisors, as well as holding occupational safety and health meetings, the company is focused on developing human resources that can support occupational safety.

Yamaha Motor Company does its best to establish workplaces that esteem diversity, defining its position on human rights by creating the Disabled Employment Promotion Committee and is working to improve the workplace environment through measures such as having analysis of organizational work and other tasks conducted by committee members assigned to each division. As of December 2012, the Company employed more then 140 people severely and mildly disabled, increasing the disabled employment rate. In doing this the Company is looking to build a society in which people with and without disabilities can live and work together. 

        The relationship with its customers its very important for the company which expects from its employees to improve continuously the quality of its products by sharing quality–related informations, formulating action plans and training, raising customer satisfaction to higher levels.

      By being a worldwide transportation machinery manufacturer, Yamaha Motor Company considers the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to be critical for the environment. Reducing every year the CO2 emissions its the main target of Yamaha that going forward will work is way to reduce gas emissions completely in all of its business units as well as reducing environmentally hazardous substances, that could be harmful to human health or the environment.

Yamaha is also involved in special Environment friendly events such as a beach cleanup and baby loggerhead sea turtle watching event at Nakatajima Sand Dunes in Japan, where endangered loggerhead sea turtles come to lay their eggs. Every year since 1991, lots of people including friends, employees and family members participate to this event that show the involvement of the company in environment related matters.

        

Ch. 2 - Strategic Planning for Competitive Advantage

One of the main Goals of Yamaha Motor Company is to satisfy its customers with products that exceeds their expectations, creating unforgettable and unique  memorable experiences that can contribute to the quality of life. Yamaha Motor Company has a wide range of products but it all began with Motorcycles, where the founder Genichi Kawagami needed to explore new markets. Choice that after more then 50 years made Yamaha one of the leaders of the Motorcycles Market, giving its customers "the sensation of profound excitement and gratification derived from experiencing supreme quality and performance", which is what Yamaha through the japanese word Kandō uses to describe its corporate mission.

2015 will be a very important year for the House of Iwata after few years of restructuring its domestic and foreign manufacturing facilities. Yamaha Motor Company is ready to expand its business scale and begin to grow once again introducing on the market the Yamaha YZR R1, a new kind of motorcycle that is ready to transform the sportbike world and showcase Yamaha's vision for the future.
Yamaha has been able to fully express the comparative advantage of this line, approaching the existing market of riders showing them the development of this new model and how its technology is derived from its closest racing model, the Yamaha YZR M1 that competes in the MotoGP category.
As its marketing objective, Yamaha's engineers and designers had the opportunity to explore new concepts and designs, and create the kind of machine that, up to now, only factory racers could ever experience.

Yamaha Motor Company can count in an unbeatable marketing mix, by having the R1 being developed by the 9th time World Champion Valentino Rossi also known for his incredible skills of bike developer (4 times MotoGP World Champion with Yamaha Factory Team) as well  as the innovating technologies with which the bike was created (Product Strategies). Yamaha can count on retailers spread out all over the world, expecially in North America, Europe and Asia, making its products available everywhere and an excellent website that can locate the closest retail store (Place). The R1 was presented at the end of 2014 at the EICMA, which is an International Motorcycle Exposition that takes place every year in Milan and can count steadily almost one million visitors each edition, where manufacturers debut new models. Promotional videos were spread online announcing the new born R1 with an effective promotional message prior the show (Promotion Strategies). Yamaha knows how price is an important competitive tool for earning revenue. The R1 has been introduced with an accessible price for its customers, giving them the opportunity to experience such a great innovating machine (Price).
Yamaha Motor Company with its creativity and innovating technology performs an enviable strategic planning in order to magnify its competitive advantage towards its main competitors.

MOTOGP season opens up and the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team is in Malesia for Winter Test

Yamaha Motor Company is widely engaged in many different leagues around the world with its Sport Teams. Today in Malesia opens up the MOTOGP Season where the Movistar Yamaha MotoGP Team will try to get the Championship  Crown from rival team Repsol Honda Team and it's rider Marc Marquez. With its riders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, the Team hope to conquer the Championship after the second place of last year. Today Test finished with Riders Rossi and Lorenzo in second and third place with timing very close to Marquez, the leader of the day. It seems that the hard work and perseverance of Yamaha Motor Company started to give its results.