Strategic Management of Carsales.com.au: A Detailed Analysis

This report provides a detailed analysis of the strategic management of Carsales.com.au. It begins by defining strategic management and illustrating its application through the case study of Carsales.com.au, highlighting its innovative marketing approach and competitive advantages. The report examines the company's unique business model, including its classified advertising forum and the CEO's flat-rate pricing strategy, which helped attract a large customer base. It explores the company's competitive advantages, focusing on its early adoption of internet technology and the use of specialized technology to create high-quality advertisements. The report further investigates the internal and external factors contributing to Carsales.com.au's success, such as its business model and the rise of the global middle class. Finally, it applies a SWOT analysis to evaluate the company's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, providing insights into its future performance and strategic planning.

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Strategic Management of Carsales.com.au
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1STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
Table of Contents
Answer 1)...................................................................................................................................3
Answer 2)...................................................................................................................................4
Answer 3)...................................................................................................................................5
Answer 4)...................................................................................................................................7
References:.................................................................................................................................9

2STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
Answer 1)
Strategic management involves the formulation of major goals that are taken by the
top management of the company for the owners. It is based on the resources and includes an
assessment of the internal along with the external environment within which an organization
competes. Strategic management helps in providing direction to the enterprise and specifies
the objectives of the organization. Strategic management has been illustrated with the help of
this case study as it exposes the innovative manner of marketing of carsales.com.au that
enables it to stay ahead of their competitors (Wijnhoven and Plant 2017). The strategic
management of the company was different as compared to traditional companies that made it
a game changer within the industry. The quality and consistent information provided by
carsales.com.au made it popular among a wide range of population and helped in attracting
the attention of the customers. The customer will be able to do a lot of research before they
buy their favourite car. The unique facilities offered by carsales.com made it a hugely popular
brand among the customers.
The goals of the top management helped the company in gaining an advantage over
the competitors so that they can succeed in the market. Strategic management of carsales.com
has been brought out with the help of this case study and it focuses on unique business model
of the company. The classified advertising forum like The Trading Post earned profits by
getting sellers who used to buy the advertisements of their cars. It helped them in generating
advertising revenue. The main focus of carsales.com was on achieving the sale and the CEO
Greg Roebuck offered the sellers a flat rate till the time the car was sold. It also states how
putting the advertisement of car online can enable it to win over a large consumer base. It
also emphasizes on the use of specialised technology that can help in creating high quality

3STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
advertisements that can help the sellers who are searching for potential cars (Carsales.com.au,
2018).
The case study talks about how providing more information relating to the car can
help in connecting the buyers with that of the sellers. The use of pictures in order to make the
brand attractive is a marketing strategy that has been deployed by carsales.com.au to lure the
customers. The use of internet in an era where a very small number of car dealers were
connected to the internet helped the company to a great extent in gaining a strategic
advantage over the peers (Lambert, Holmes and Warrington 2014). This is another important
arena that has been discussed at length in the course of this case study and thus reveals the
strategic management techniques of carsales.com. One can also compare the different cars
and buy them on the basis of their needs and wants. The website displays different categories
of cars and customers can search based on their particular requirement.
Answer 2)
The competitive advantage that carsales.com has achieved is in relation to the
business model of the company. It was initially founded in order to improve the quality of
services in relation to car sale. It has helped the people in the process of buying and selling
car. The Unique selling points (USP) of the company helped them in standing out over that of
rival firms. The business model of the company was an area that helped in garnering a lot of
support of the customers. Carsales.com.au has thought on a unique process of achieving sale
and they offered the sellers a flat fee till the time the car was sold. This shows the dynamic
management techniques of the CEO and the top management who has devised this innovative
method in order to serve the purpose of attracting consumers (Chiu and Shu 2017). In an age
where people could hardly spell the name “internet”, carsales.com.au created its unique
presence in the internet and made use of specialised technology that can help the sellers to

4STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
sell their cars. Greg along with his team put a lot of effort and used to physically collect
pictures along with information regarding the cars from that of the dealers.Carsales.com.au
did all that they could in order to draw the attention of the customer. The different strategic
management techniques adopted helped the company in winning over loyal customers
(Lambert, Holmes and Warrington 2014).
Carsales.com.au can maintain its competitive advantage by taking recourse to
Instagram. Instagram is a great platform that helps in sharing the story of the brand. The
beautiful pictures can attract the customer towards the brand (Wijnhoven and Plant 2017).
Car consumers want to compare the models and look into the safety features before they buy
a car. They tend to look for such kind of content that can help them in making a decision
about the purchase of the car. Videos can be embedded within the website of the company
and they can also be hosted on a channel like You tube that can help in driving more organic
visibility. Interaction with the social fans can prove to be of great merit that can help the
company maintain competitive advantage over that of the customers. Carsales.com.au should
respond to the tweets and thank those who are responsible for sharing the content that can
help in creating customer engagement (Chiu and Shu 2017). Monitoring should be done
continuously that can help in earning valuable opportunities. Discounts and deals provided on
carsales.com can help in the promotion of the brand.
Answer 3)
I think that the success of Carsales.com.au is on account of both the internal along
with that of the external factors. The internal factor comprises of the business model of the
company and the initiative taken by the CEO Greg Roebuck of offering sellers a flat rate till
the time the car was sold helped the brand to become popular (Bellini et al. 2017). The use of
special technology that was instrumental in creating advertisements of high quality was

5STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
another USP of Carsales.com.au. Though the plan of launching the advertisements of car
online was a risky move but it helped the car brand in getting hold over the market (Yang and
Coughlin 2014). Innovations and introduction of new functionality allow the customers to
view the website on mobile device that was a crucial internal factor the success of the brand.
The external factors that has led to the success of carsales.com.au is the increase in
standard of living of the average Australian household. The increase in per capita income has
made it possible for the people to buy luxury items. The global economy can be conceived of
to be an important external factor that has caused the car sales business to flourish. The fast
paced lifestyle of people of the modern age does not leave one with sufficient amount of time
to use the public transport (Williams, Rana and Dwivedi 2015). This is thus an important
factor that has ensured the rising popularity of carsales.com.au. Many inexpensive new cars
have come into the market that offer great fuel efficiency and does not sacrifice horsepower.
They prove to be advantageous for the environment and is easily affordable by the customers
(Butler, Garg and Stephens 2015). They can easily be bought by the budget conscious buyers.
The banks also provide low interest and offer loans that can help the middle class household
to buy their favourite cars.
Connectivity along with autonomous technology will allow the passengers to use the
time in transit for personal activity which is a great advantage for the purchase of a car. The
technological advances made will make the journey on the road comfortable for the users of
private transport that will make the business of carsales.com.au to become more popular. An
important driver of growth of carsales.com.au is the positive macroeconomic development
and the rise of global middle class (Williams, Rana and Dwivedi 2015). A fundamental shift
can be perceived in relation to individual mobility behaviour. It is being said that fully
autonomous vehicles will become commercially available before the year 2020. Advanced

6STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
driver-assistance system has played an important role in making the car business more
popular (Berggren and Kågeson 2017).
Answer 4)
SWOT analysis refers to a process with the help of which the management team can
identify the internal along with external factors that will have an effect on the future
performance of the company. The strengths along with weaknesses are indicative of the
internal factors whereas opportunities along with threats point to the external environment
factors that will have an effect on the growth of the company. It is an integral part of
corporate planning process within which operational goals are set for the future (González,
Cárcaba and Ventura 2015).
Every company has a finite supply in relation to the manpower and production
capacity. Evaluation of strength of carsales.com.au by Greg Roebuck will help in the process
of allocation of resources that will pave the path for revenue growth along with profitability
of the company (Pollard, Chuo and Lee 2016). The management team of carsales.com.au can
examine in which field the company can compete in the most effective manner. It will also
help in analyzing the competitive strengths that has not been properly used in the past.
Carsales.com.au has a great customer service department that is always ready to serve the
customers and this one of the key strengths of the company. It can be developed so that it can
lead to better customer satisfaction (Tornikoski, Rannikko and Heimonen 2017) The
weakness of the company can be attributed to cash flow problem and analyzing the weakness
can help in setting the stage clear for finding the solutions to the problem.
The high start-up cost is another barrier for the company that proved to be a barrier
for the growth of the company. The size of the staff can be reduced that can help the
company to earn more revenue. The service ratings should be displayed on the website of

7STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
carsales.com.au that will help the consumers to get an idea about the quality of service
provided by the brand. They will come forward to buy the car from their website. The
innovation that allow the customers to view the website from the mobile devices is another
compelling factor that will lead to the expansion of the brand. It will also deal in automotive
products and divide into different new channels that will make the brand popular in the
market (Pollard, Chuo and Lee 2016). The monitoring of the emerging technologies of
carsales.com.au can be to be of extreme benefit for the business and set them apart from that
of the other rival firms in Australia. Carsales.com.au can minimize the weakness and a
financial source can be taken recourse to in case of being short on cash and the initiatives of
the competitors should be analyzed at length for the success of the company. The government
policies of Australia can act as a major hindrance and carsales.com.au should have in mind
the policies so that it can grow in the long run.

8STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
References:
Bellini, E., Dell'Era, C., Frattini, F. and Verganti, R., 2017. Design‐Driven Innovation in
Retailing: An Empirical Examination of New Services in Car Dealership. Creativity and
Innovation Management, 26(1), pp.91-107.
Berggren, C. and Kågeson, P., 2017. Speeding up electro-mobility: How to electrify half of
new car sales by 2030.
Butler, J., Garg, R. and Stephens, B., 2015. Social Networks, Funding, and Regional
Advantages in Technology Entrepreneurship.
Carsales.com.au (2018). [online] Available at: https://www.carsales.com.au/ [Accessed 8 Jan.
2018].
Chiu, C. and Shu, C.H., 2017, July. Monthly car sales prediction using Internet Word-of-
Mouth (eWOM). In INnovations in Intelligent SysTems and Applications (INISTA), 2017
IEEE International Conference on (pp. 345-348). IEEE.
González, E., Cárcaba, A. and Ventura, J., 2015. How car dealers adjust prices to reach the
product efficiency frontier in the Spanish automobile market. omega, 51, pp.38-48.
Lambert, D., Holmes, S. and Warrington, K.A., 2014. Cost and Time-Efficient Internet Car
Sales.
Pollard, D., Chuo, S. and Lee, B., 2016. Strategies for mass customization. Journal of
Business & Economics Research (Online), 14(3), p.101.
Tornikoski, E.T., Rannikko, H. and Heimonen, T.P., 2017. Technology‐Based Competitive
Advantages of Young Entrepreneurial Firms: Conceptual Development and Empirical
Exploration. Journal of Small Business Management, 55(2), pp.200-215.

9STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT OF CARSALES.COM.AU
Wijnhoven, F. and Plant, O., 2017. Sentiment Analysis and Google Trends Data for
Predicting Car Sales.
Williams, M.D., Rana, N.P. and Dwivedi, Y.K., 2015. The unified theory of acceptance and
use of technology (UTAUT): a literature review. Journal of Enterprise Information
Management, 28(3), pp.443-488.
Yang, J. and Coughlin, J.F., 2014. In-vehicle technology for self-driving cars: Advantages
and challenges for aging drivers. International Journal of Automotive Technology, 15(2),
pp.333-340.