Toyota's International Business Strategy: Electric Cars in India

This report details Toyota's strategic plan for entering the Indian market with its electric cars. It begins with a product overview, highlighting the features of the electric vehicles and their appeal to environmentally conscious consumers. The report then delves into pricing decisions, suggesting a competitive strategy to make the cars accessible while considering environmental impacts and revenue expectations. Place decisions focus on leveraging existing dealership networks and auto supply stores for distribution. Promotion strategies emphasize targeted advertising through various media outlets, aiming to build brand awareness and generate sales. The report also outlines key success factors, including low dilution of ownership, low financial risks, return on investment, easy access to local markets, and company liquidity. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of a strong marketing strategy and excellent customer service to achieve greater sales and market penetration in India. The report also includes references to support its findings.

Marketing Mix:
Figure 1: 4P’s of
Marketing Picture
Illustration
1. Product
Decisions:
Product is the
item that Toyota is focused on selling in its target country. In this case, it is its electric cars
that the company wants to sell in India (Team, 2020). It is to note that these electric cars.
These cars run through battery and there are more than 10 different models of these cars. The
key roles of these electric cars are to reduce pollution, reducing costs of running and improve
mobility in the urban areas. Modern customers are becoming environment conscious and
majority of them are turning into eco-friendly buyers. These cars would serve their purpose
to a great extent. Also, India is already one among its largest markets and majority of the
population already make use of Toyota Cars and other products. It can make use of adaption
strategy and adapt each technology to its best use. The expected sales is 5.5 million by the
year 2030 as more and more number of consumers are becoming environment consumers and
Toyota has already been successful in making a good brand image in the country.
2. Pricing Decisions:

The company can make use of competitive pricing as it has already established a good
brand image; it can therefore offer its products on high price. However, it should take into
consideration the rising costs. The society is already having a negative impact on the
environment. Toyota’s product is undoubtedly eco-friendly but the company should also
ensure that more number of buyers can afford it so that it actually can do well for the
environment (Contractor, 2020). For this reason, it should plan to sell the cars for 15.78 lakh
INR onwards. The total revenue expectation is 278billion dollars.
3. Place Decisions:
Toyota can make use of dealership, which is already its main place for distributing its
products (Resta et al., 2015). However, some retailers such as auto supply stores also sell its
products and other car accessories and therefore, can depend on both.
4. Promotion Decisions:
The target audiences of the company are the conscious customers who place an
importance on the environment and the ones who want to save at the gas pumps. Its
promotion strategy should cover all the tactics of marketing communications and make use
of personal selling through dealership as they can personally promote the cars to the potential
buyers. It should also advertise on different media like newspapers, television and website
about the products to large audience to make them aware of its existence in their country.
The main objective of it is to build the net revenue by expanding the incomes from general
deals. The basic advertising message would be classy and save your environment. The
proposed promotion expenditure would be 2,25,500$.
5. Main Success Factors

The main success factors for Toyota in respect of spreading business in India are presented
below:
a) Low Degree of Dilution of Ownership
Toyota in India needs to avoid dilution of ownership because it can affect its financial
performance in both the home and host country.
b) Low Financial Risks
There are low financial risks for Toyota in India as it has already developed a string brand
image in the country and therefore, it does not require thinking much about its liquidity and
dormant development. However, it should be continuously embrace a target market sector where
monetary risks are lower, like the upper class business men.
c) Return on Investment (ROI)
India today has emerged as being one of the key players in the world (Hopewell, 2015). Toyota
should wisely estimate its potential incomes as well as its profitability margins from its new
market appearance in India. It can raise the bar of profitability target and sustain it through ROI
mindset and cost ownership in India.
d) Easy to Reach Local Marketers and Clients
In India, there is easy access to the local clients and customers along with marketers. For
this reason, for Toyota, the risk of not being able to survive in the international country is quite
low. However, it should still make effective marketing strategy to attain greater sales in India
and make sure that its customer service is the best in the market to catch more clients and local
marketers.

e) Liquidity of the Company
Liquidity is important for each and every business, be it operating domestically or
internationally. The liquidity of Toyota in India is sustainable. It is to mention that the Indian
automobile industry is improving liquidity by means of credit expansion to the public sector
banks.
References:

Contractor, S. (2020). Toyota Confirms Plans To Launch Its Electric Car In India - CarandBike.
CarandBike. Retrieved 6 April 2020, from https://auto.ndtv.com/news/toyota-confirms-
plans-to-launch-its-electric-car-in-india-2120948.
Hopewell, K. (2015). Different paths to power: The rise of Brazil, India and China at the World
Trade Organization. Review of international political economy, 22(2), 311-338.
Resta, B., Powell, D., Gaiardelli, P., & Dotti, S. (2015). Towards a framework for lean
operations in product-oriented product service systems. CIRP Journal of Manufacturing
Science and Technology, 9, 12-22.
Team, C. (2020). Toyota And Suzuki Officially Confirm Technology Partnership Agreement -
CarandBike. CarandBike. Retrieved 6 April 2020, from
https://auto.ndtv.com/news/toyota-and-suzuki-officially-confirm-technology-partnership-
agreement-1656899.