Yamaha Motor Company Limited is the Japanese motorcycle manufacturer, marine vehicle like outboard motors, boats, and different motorized products. Yamaha was founded in 1955, after the separation from the Yamaha Corporation, however, the Yamaha Corporation have the biggest shareholder of up to 12.21%. It’s headquartered in Shizuoka, Iwata in Japan. It conducts the production, marketing operations and development through the 109 consolidates subsidiaries. The motorcycle of Yamaha are considered as the second biggest across the globe, however, Yamaha and outboard motors are the world leader in the sales of water vehicle. Yamaha is also involve in sales and import of different kind of products, leisure management, development of few tourist businesses, and recreational services and facilities. The company has diversified its risk in different fields, and for this it is necessary to analyze and evaluate every single product in the portfolio and categories, to make wise decisions related to investment, and running the operations. For this, BCG matrix is helpful for the company, which helps in identifying the strategic position of the products and services. There are fur quadrants; star, cash cow, question mark, and dogs, which are evaluated in two main aspects; the market growth and market share (Yamaha, 2018). Here is the detailed BCG matrix analysis of Yamaha;
Cash Cows
The quadrant contain the products which have high market share but relatively low market growth rate. Because of high market share, the products earn a lot in terms of sales, and the revenue earn mostly spend in other operational features of the company or invest in other product category. But due to low growth rate, the cash consumption is low, and hence the profit is higher. Outboard motors are the cash cow for the Yamaha, as it is the market leader across the globe in this category. The features are unique and Yamaha is successful in grabbing the market share (Nikkei, 2013).
Stars
As per the name suggested, star quadrant contain the products which have high market share and high market growth rate. This shows the category consumes cash more and also generate enough but less than the cash cow. The stars are required to be maintained properly to turn it in to cash cow or else this could be the problem child for the company. Motorcycles are the star items for the Yamaha, as in many part of the world, the product is growing in the competitive industry, but is successful in making its own space. The products features are unique and ranked in the Forbes (Bhasin, 2018).
Question Marks
The products in this category have low market share but high growth rate, which makes them consuming heavy investment to survive in the market with little profit. But these products have the potential to grow and if investment is made properly, it could easily turn it into star quadrant. Electric bicycles are the question mark for Yamaha, as the electric bikes are the future of the company, and so possess the potential to have growth. Currently it has low market share, but in near future it can turn into star (Bhasin, 2018).
Dogs
This category is consider to be the burden on the company, as they have low market share and low level of market growth. These items need heavy investment to survive in the market, because most of the time they lie on the breakeven point, neither make profit nor loss. If they consistently make loss, the operations of them must be shut down. Music instrument can be dog items in China as it has the lowest market share there. It does not mean, it is the burden on the company in every country. The company needs to identify the reason for low market share and need to turn it into question mark (Statista, 2017).
References
Bhasin, H. 2018. SWOT analysis of Yamaha. [Online], Available at: https://www.marketing91.com/swot-analysis-of-yamaha-motors/, [Accessed on: 12th September, 2018].
Nikkei, 2013. From Yamaha, marine business earns earnest Use of motorcycle know-how. [Online], Available at: https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXNASDD110W1_S3A910C1000000/, [Accessed on: 12th September, 2018].
Statista, 2017. Yamaha Corporation’s musical instrument sales worldwide in the 2017 fiscal year, by region (in million U.S. dollars). [Online], Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/612265/music-instrument-sales-of-yamaha-corporation-by-region/, [Accessed on: 12th September, 2018].
Yamaha, 2018. Company overview. [Online], Available at: http://www.yamaha-motor.com/corporate/home.aspx, [Accessed on: 12th September, 2018].