Visit the website of the Ford Motor Company: www.ford.co.uk.

You like most car manufacturers, Ford has faced a number of significant changes in it’s marketing environment over the past few decades. Buyers’ preferences have changed, for example there has recently been increased concern for safety and fuel consumption. Government pressure has led to changes in design, for example the taxation of vehicles according to their emissions. The way people buy cars has changed, with an increasing emphasis on relationship based approaches to selling cars, and the inclusion of numerous services. Look through the website, and ask the following:

Questions:

1. Undertake an environmental analysis using a framework such as “PEST” to identify the pressures on Ford and how it has responded to these pressures through the products that it offers.

2. What evidence do you see of Ford responding to increased concern about the price of fuel?

3. Car manufacturers are increasingly adding services to their product offer.  What evidence can you gather from Ford’s website about the extent to which it has become a service based company?

4. What additional services might it be suitable for Ford to develop? Is it strategically sensible for the company to become more involved in services?

5. Now visit the website of a pressure group such as Friends of the Earth (http://www.foe.co.uk) which has campaigned against the use of cars. How would you suggest Ford responds to the pressures of such groups?