Automotive Industry and Car free essay sample

Company History Perusahaan Otomobil Kedua Sdn Bhd (PERODUA), established in 1993, is a joint venture company between Malaysian and Japanese partners. The shareholders of Perodua are UMW Corporation Sdn Bhd with 38% stake, Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. (20%), MBM Resources Bhd (20%), PNB Equity Resources Corporation Sdn Bhd (10%), Mitsui Co. Ltd (7%) and Daihatsu (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (5%). Perodua mainly produces small-compact cars therefore does not directly compete with Proton for the same market niche. In the United Kingdom their cars are sold by Proton dealers who wish to attract customers seeking a smaller and cheaper alternative to the Proton range. Besides the UK and Singapore, Perodua also exports their cars to Brunei, Fiji, Sri Lanka, Nepal And Mauritius in small numbers by local dealers. The company started operations in 1994 and the ever so popular Perodua Kancil was introduced to the Malaysian market in August the same year. To date, the following vehicles have rolled out of the Perodua plant: †¢ The Perodua Rusa March 1996 †¢ The Perodua Kembara August 1998 †¢ The Perodua Kenari – June 2000 The Perodua Kelisa – August 2001 †¢ The Perodua Myvi – May 2005 †¢ The Perodua Viva – May 2007 †¢ The Perodua Nuatica 4WD – May 2008 †¢ The Perodua Alza – November 2009 As of 30 September 2010, Perodua has sold some 1. 85 million units of vehicles of various models. Perodua headquarters is located on an 138-hectare site in Sungai Choh, Rawang, Selangor Darul Ehsan. It houses among others Perodua corporate building, RD testing laboratories and styling studio, vehicle test track, manufacturing plant, engine plant, pre-delivery inspection area, vehicle distribution stockyard and parts warehouse. Perodua Auto Corporation Sdn Bhd (PCSB) was established in the final quarter of 2001. Besides Perodua, the two other joint venture partners of PCSB are Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. and Mitsui Co. Ltd both of Japan. The manufacturing operations of the Perodua Group are being managed by PCSB. Recent Company Development As compared to Proton, Perodua has been quite successful in its business ventures. Its cars are very popular among Malaysians such as the recently introduced Perodua Myvi, which sold 7413 units in October 2010, outselling its rival’s bestselling car, the Proton Saga, which only sold 6535 units in Malaysia. In 2009 and 2010, Perodua became the bestselling car company in Malaysia. It is because Perodua knows how to fulfill the customer needs such as saving the transportation cost, customers don’t need spending a lot on petrol. Effect of the economy recession, consumers would like to buy a car which can save cost. The company knows Perodua Myvi has good market demand, without losing such great opportunity, at July  07, 2010; Perodua launched a Myvi Limited Edition (Myvi LE)with added features to make it even more appealing to Malaysians. The new car has been given a fresh exterior look with newly design fog lamps, front grille, hood, grade mark with exclusive Limited Edition and emblem while the interior has been updated with new exclusive fabric, decorative cubic painting centre cluster, silver painted chrome finishing steering wheel, chrome door inner handle. For further comfort and satefy, radio CD-player with MP3/WMA,USB Bluetooth and dual SRS airbags at driver passenger have also been added in. Prices for the Myvi LE range between RM48,100 to RM48,600. New colour has been added; Dazzling Red. SWOT Analysis Strength 80/20 rule The price that offered by Perodua is cheaper compared to other competitors. Almost 80% of Malaysians are affordable to purchase Perodua’s product. 80% of Malaysians are employees; they can’t afford to pay more in buying a vehicle. So that, Perodua’s car will become one of their choices when they are planning to buy a car. According to 80/20 rule, 80% of Malaysians are affordable to buy the car; it’s a good for Perodua. Affiliate with Japanese car maker Perodua is a joint venture company between Malaysian and Japanese partner. The shareholders of Perodua are UMW Corporation Sdn Bhd with 38% stake, Daihatsu Motor Co. Ltd. (20%), MBM Resources Bhd (20%), PNB Equity Resources Corporation Sdn Bhd (10%), Mitsui Co. Ltd (7%) and Daihatsu (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd (5%). Among those shareholders, Daihatsu is a Japanese car brand; its biggest shareholder is Toyota Motor Corp. This make Perodua indirectly linked to Toyota. Learning centre Perodua launch its learning centre on 4 December. The learning centre provides lots of course for those who are interested to join the automobile industry. Besides that, Perodua also provide courses for the engineers inside the company. Those courses can help them to improve their technical skills and working experience. There are 2 courses provided by Perodua, they are Perodua Technical Education System (PTES) and Perodua Technical Education System (Advance). Perodua also conduct special programmers for school leavers (SPM) such as Perodua Youth Training Programmed (PYTP). Those school leavers are recruited and train in-house until they qualify to MLVK Level 1. This PYTP is enabling young people to gain valuable knowledge and skills that increase their chances of employment. Entities of Perodua Group There are 3 entities inside Perodua Group. Those 3 entities are Perodua Sales Sdn Bhd (PSSB), Perodua Manufacturing Sdn Bhd (PMSB) and Perodua Engine Manufacturing Sdn Bhd (PEMSB). Those entities are working on their own basis, for example PSSB is monitor on the sales of products and services. This kind of distribution can make the managing process become easier. Top management can easily monitor those 3 entities in terms of their own working basis. This can reduce conflict between those entities and increase efficiency of managing and manufacturing process among these entities. Weakness Lack of expertise in design Perodua’s car doesn’t have a nice appearance compare to other imported car. It is because Perodua doesn’t have enough designer in designing car models if compare to other imported car makers. This is a weakness for Perodua in order to compete with competitors, such as Proton. Although Perodua had just launched its learning centre, but the learning centre doesn’t provide courses of designing a car. This learning centre can’t help Perodua in terms of increase the expertise of designers in-house. Some of the car model that launch by Perodua is taken from Daihatsu, for example Perodua Kancil’s original model design is copied from Daihatsu Mira. Although there is no Daihatsu Mira in Malaysia, but it’s very easy for those car lover to recognize it. This will lead to the perception of Malaysian that Perodua duplicate the model from Daihatsu; this will affect the reputation of Perodua. Production cost increase The instability of economy in year 2008 made lots of businesses collapse. This economy recession also affect Perodua in terms of production cost. The instability of economy make Perodua production cost increase, this will decrease the marginal profit for the sales. Decrease in profit will affect to the research and development. It is because if the profit become lower than before, the company will cut off some cost to prevent lost in the financial. This will lead to low RD in terms of production and manufacturing. Internal Factors Analysis Summary (IFAS) | | |Internal Strategic Factors |Comment | |Strength | | |S1. Reasonable price |Affordable by public | |S2. Affiliate with Japanese car maker |Positive image | |S3. Learning Centre |More expertise trained | |S4. Entities of Perodua Groups |Less conflict | |Weakness | | |W1. Lack of expertise |Lack of designer | |W2. Increase of production cost |Lowering the profit | Opportunities Low Fuel Price Due to the market fuel price is getting low; now people are switching their lifestyles. Recently, people prefer to have their own car rather than using public transport. They are preferably to pay more in buying car rather than to pay the expensive fuel rate, because petrol is being use every time, everywhere. Actually there is indirect negative relationship between fuel price and the demand of car. When fuel price is decreasing, the demand of car will be increase. Why is it like these, because fuel is the complement product for cars so people will increase their usage of the car when the fuel price is getting low, therefore automatically the demand of car will increase rapidly. Government Protection Government provides sufficient protection for local industry especially in automotive industry because there only have two domestic automotive manufactures which is Perodua and Proton. They stated many policy over the foreign company like tariff and non- tariff barrier to control the import rate. Usually government will charge high tax or duty on imported cars, or in other way they will set a quota for the imported cars. All regulation made by government is to look after local industry and prevent market cannibalization by foreigner. Protection given by government provided opportunity for Perodua to sustain their position in domestic industry and also dominate the Malaysian market. Consumer Lifestyle Change The lifestyle is changing over time, therefore needs and wants for consumers always differ from time to time, it actually depend on the market trend. Perodua choose to target on people who prefer compact-cars. Now a day, people demand to be more convenient in all aspect, that why they choose compact-car because it is more convenient and save space when you park it. In this context, they are considering has been successful because Perodua has a good position in the compact-car segment, which is a growing market internationally. Its Myvi model has been particularly successful. Green Car Technology Now a day, people are changing their notion and more concerning on the environmental friendly product. The advancement of technology in Lithium-ion Batteries also creates an opportunity to automotive industry to enter into the new segment. Commonly, we only heard lithium-ion batteries has helped create a market for notebook computers, cell phones, and other portable devices, from the iPod to the BlackBerry. Researchers have toiled for many years in attempts to scale this technology for use in automotive traction batteries. While the benefit for consumers could be revolutionary-and could open the door to plug-in hybrids and battery-electric vehicles-challenges remain significant. This session emphasized economic and environmental strategy rather than chemistry and engineering. Based on what researcher has done before, there is future opportunity for Perodua to focus on this potential market. Threats Consumer Perceptions towards Quality Perception of consumer is major factor that affect customer purchase decision. Customers are considering close to the buying process when they have a good perception toward a certain product. In opposite, if customer has a negative perception towards a product, therefore they would never purchase that product. Basically, Malaysian prefers to buy something that is produce by foreign manufacture because the perception in their mind stated that foreign products to be more quality compare with domestic product. As an evident of statement, we take an example in UK market; Perodua was poor publicity and researcher critic Kelisa as worst car in the world because of their quality. This is a huge threat for Perodua in targeting oversea market in the future. Economic Recession The researcher already made an assumption; there will be an economic recession in all country in these coming years. The recession will cause country facing a crisis in economic, then will give a huge impact on the global market and industry. Therefore, the rate of unemployment will be increase and more workers will lose their job soon. When people lose their job, they have no any income, by this, they will not spending in buying luxury item like cars. This is not only caused by the loss of jobs within the country suffering from recession but also due to the fact the value of a countries currency also suffers heavily in a recession, which causes the price of items to increase which includes items like raw materials, this again makes it impossible for Perodua not to raise their prices, making sales dwindle further Government control Before that, government is encouraging people to buy car because of to increase the performance of country economic. Government is providing loan openly for who that desire to have their own car. But in recent years, government is changing their policies to reduce the rate of loan provision. Only people that fulfill the requirement are qualified to get loan. Action that taking by government is forced by traffic congestion condition. Therefore, government tries to control the number of car in the road by reducing the car loan provision. This will cause the Perodua sales fall down because people will be not interested to buy car when they can’t get a loan. The high rate of air pollution caused a large amount of cars also plays an important role in influencing government policy, with the government constantly promoting car pooling and the use of public transport, it is hard to believe that the automotive industry to go undamaged. External Factors Analysis Summary (EFAS) |External Strategic |Comment | |Factors | | |Opportunities | | |O 1. Fuel Price |Complement for automobile. | |O 2. GOV Protection |Protect domestic industry. | |O35. Buyer Lifestyle |Trends. | |O 4. GOV Policy |Incentive for old car trade –in. | |Threats | | |T 1. Customer Perception |Poor publicity. (ex: in U. K) | |T 2. Economic Recession |Consumer buying behavior changed. | |T 3. GOV Control |Due to traffic congestion. Summary of Internal Factors Analysis Summary (IFAS) and External Factors Analysis Summary (EFAS) |Strength |Weaknesses | |S1. Reasonable price |T1. Lack of Expertise | |S2. Affiliate with Japanese car maker |T2. Slow in Launching New Car Model | |S3. Learning Centre |T3. Increase of Production Cost | |S4. Entities of Perodua Groups | | |Opportunities |Threats | |O 1. Fuel Price Strength |T 1. Customer Perception | |S1. Reasonable price |T 2. Economic Recession | |S2. Affiliate with Japanese car maker |T 3. GOV Control | |S3. Learning Centre | | |S4. Entities of Perodua Groups | | Problems and challenges face by Perodua There is vehemence competition in the automotive industry, no matter in domestic or international market. If we look at local automotive anufacture, the main competitor for Perodua is Proton which is introduced the first Malaysian car in local automotive market. Compare with Perodua, government are giving more support to Proton especially in financial part because they are the first mover in this industry for the local industry. Moreover, it also represents the success of Malaysian in automotive industry. This kind of advantage allowed Proton actively in RD and advertising activities. For recently, everyone knew that both of car manufacture would launch their new MPV car in the market, but their launching date is different. Proton will launch their first MPV car on March 2009 which Perodua launch their new MPV car Alza after eight month of Proton launch it MPV Exora. Late launching their new MPV Alza compare with Proton MPV Exora made Perodua need to capture more sales to increase their sale volume for their new MPV Alza. Beside competition from local manufacture, Perodua also faced problem in coping foreign manufacture like Toyota and Honda as a main competitors. Nowadays, Perodua is using own designer in design new car model. However, lack of expertise makes Perodua slow in launching new car model if compare to other imported car brand. This will lead to customers switch to others newest model in the market. For example, Perodua launch new model in an average of interval 2 years time. It’s consider too long for a highly compete market. It is because car maker launch new model to capture new market, but Perodua react slower than other car maker in launching new model, this will make Perodua lose its market share. For example, Proton is launching their new MPV in March 2009, but Perodua just announce that Perodua MPV will launch in the second half year. This kind of slow action will let competitor, Proton gain the new market share for local made MPV. Raw material price tend to be higher in the future as what the government stated before, because the demand of raw material seem to be exceed resource supply in this recent year. With the emergence of new markets that require the same basic building block to manufacture their own products, a company like Perodua does not only have to compete with competitors in their own industry but also with other industries like Airliner companies. In future time, this situation. will cause Perodua to spend more in buying raw material that needed for car production such as steel, aluminums and etc but it also make them can not competitive with their competitor to produce low cost vehicle. Alternative strategies use by Perodua to solve their problems and challenges Due to the creativity and innovative by human being, technologies are advanced along with time. If we see from marketing perspective, the automotive industry is position at the growth stage in a market life cycle. This means that there is still broadness space for improvement automotive industry one of the examples of innovation is introduction of hybrid vehicles in current market. Based on research, Hybrid gas-electric cars represent one of the automotive industrys fastest growing segments. The concept of Hybrid cars is giving value to the user in terms of convenience and fuel efficiency. Launching new Hybrid car Perodua Bezza in 2015 are one of the alternative competitive advantage take by Perodua to produce new vehicle which have strong demand in market. By launching new Perodua Bezza, they can penetrate in new market to produce this Hybrid car and fulfil their customers need so that they can use this opportunity as their competitive advantage to competitive with other carmaker. Build strong relationship with suppliers also one of the alternative practice by Perodua in order to reduce the raw materials prices. Equipment, machinery, raw materials, and associated services are play a important role to affect Perodua profit. By building a strong and good relationship with suppliers can help Perodua to retain their character to produce low and comfort car to their customer. When Perodua build a strong relationship with their supplier, the supplier will give them a suitable prices or discount during they purchase materials or services with them. So, build strong relationship with supplier not only can help Perodua to maintain their cost during production but it also can give Perodua a opportunity to continue produce low cost and comfort car for their customers and market. RECOMMENDATION Employee Training Training is a thing that can gain employee experience and expertise in order to increase company overall performance and productivity. Due to the advancement of today technology, company needs more employees that are familiar with new innovation technology and adapt to the revolution. As we see in TOWS matrix, learning centres (strength) and technology innovation (opportunity) is the main factors that directly support this strategy (employee training). There are two alternatives for Perodua to implement their training activity, which is send their workforce to oversea or perform it in local. The benefit for sending their workforce to oversea is, workforce may learn or adapt the technology that is new for them. When they come back to their home country, so they able to apply the knowledge’s and skills that they learned into their job. But, this type of training usually is more costly. Perodua actually may apply second alternative which is perform their activities in local because they already have their own learning centre for their workers. The only thing that they need to improve about their centre is, in terms of quality of the learning centre. Maybe they may recruit some experts from oversea to come here for educating and sharing different experience with their workers. The advantage of this action is, company won’t need to spend a lot of money to send their workers to oversea, by the way workers will expose to new experience even they have been trained in local. All of activities in improving workers skill and expertise can be consider as a functional strategy which is stated under Human Resource Department. Brand Repositioning In Malaysians’ perception, national car is a cheap but low quality car compare to other car brand. It is basically influenced by Proton to the market. Once Proton Wira is launched in Malaysia, many Malaysians buy this car, but this car is come with a lot of problems. This kind of bad perception may also influence the second national car in Malaysia, Perodua. Those customers’ perceptions had been embedded into their mind long time ago. This kind of perceptions may influence the customer’s choices in purchasing a car. Therefore, Perodua need to change customers’ mind in thinking such that way. In this situation, Perodua is facing the issue of brand name that is placed by consumer in a same category of Proton that is representative of low quality. This is a bad image for Perodua and is limiting Perodua in penetrating into more new market. In this kind of situation, Perodua need to clarify that the technology of the Perodua cars are from foreign country, Japan. Japan is a high technology environment in producing car. Those cars produced in Japan are high quality. This make customers in market believe that cars from Japan are good in quality, so they are willing to pay more in order to get a good quality car if compare to cars that produced in local plant. One of the strength for Perodua is that one of the Perodua’s subsidiaries is Daihatsu, and then Toyota is one of the subsidiaries of Daihatsu. Most of the model that launched by Perodua is model of Daihatsu. Perodua can clarify that the quality of car is same with Daihatsu car in Japan. Besides that, Toyota also let the Avanza model being assembled in Perodua plant. That means Perodua’s plant had met the qualification of Toyota in order to assemble it. It’s because Toyota is a good quality car producer. Toyota will not let Perodua assemble their car if Perodua doesn’t have the qualification. The strategy that Perodua should use is functional strategy. In functional strategy, marketing strategy is suitable for Perodua now in order to change the customers’ mind towards brand Perodua. Perodua should reposition its brand in customer’s mind. The repositioning process can be done by launching lots of sales promotion and trade show. In between the trade show, customers can test drive the Perodua’s car. This gives them a chance in testing the real car rather than just listen to others opinions that are not being confirmed yet. Marketing Strategies In terms of marketing strategy, Perodua actually may refer to marketing mix to develop their strategy. There are four elements in marketing mix (4P) which is product, place, price and promotion. The different strategy will be use according to each P. But in this research, we only focus on the 3P’s which is product, price and promotion. For product strategy, Perodua should heavily expend in the R because through this activity only they would know what and how to improve their product. Roughly, the activities that may implement by Perodua towards products are expanding the product features, advantage and benefits (FAB). Feature is a physical characteristic that owned by the product itself like size, color and shape. Advantage is performance characteristic like the function of the product. However benefit is a result of advantage which is after use benefits. It can be divided into practical benefit and psychological benefit. For pricing strategy, Perodua should reconsider their supply chain in order to minimize their production cost. They actually can dealing with their existing supplier or select new one to cut off the raw material price as much as they can. When raw material acquisition price getting low then it will directly leads to the lower selling price to end consumer. The flows of supply chain are very important for a company in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. If they manage to operate it supply chain effectively so it will increase the performance of the company. However for promotion, there are many tools can be use by Perodua to implement their promotion activities. We recommend Perodua to focus on advertising and sales promotion to promote their product. If we compare to other competitors, Perodua advertisement is rarely appear in media. It may cause to lack of awareness by consumer towards a Perodua product. As we know, television is the best medium for marketer to communicate their product to the consumer because it is large number of the audience. So, maybe action that can be taken by Perodua is to develop more attractive advertisement and post it to the high exposure media to increase the consumer awareness. In price promotion, maybe Perodua could give some incentives or discount to the car buyer to persuade them to purchase the car. Example, they could pull down their price during the promotion period (during fair or road show) to attract people to buy. As a conclusion, all of these marketing activities and programs are falls under functional strategy (Marketing Department). Create more new car models The typical business firm usually considers three type of strategy which is corporate, business, and functional but it is only emphasized in business and functional strategy in this generating alternative strategy by using Tows Matrix. Firstly, business strategies are divided into two categories, competitive and cooperative strategies. Perodua would use competitive strategies in the car industry. In competitive strategy, Perodua is encouraged to implement niche-low-cost-differentiation strategy. Perodua should more create new models by fulfill the different segment of customers requirement. For example, the smallest family will buy smaller car such as Myvi and the biggest family will choose to buy multi-purpose vehicle. Besides that, Perodua must maintain the producing cost in order to compete with others. If the prices were approximately close to or expensive than foreign cars, domestic consumers would shift to buy foreign cars. As a carmaker, the company must sensitive to the requirement of the market. The company needs to come out different car models to attract more potential customers and customers will have more choices to buy a compatible car. Perodua was produced various car models such as Perodua Kancil (1994), Perodua Rusa (1996), Perodua Kembara (1998-2008), Perodua Kenari (2000), Perodua Kelisa (2001), Perodua Myvi (2005), Perodua Viva (2007) and Perodua Nautica (2008). It shows that Perodua was slowness in creating new car models. Perodua normally spend in between of one to four years for creating new car models. On the orders hand, the Daihatsu is one of the partners of Perodua Company was produced new models fastest than Perodua such as Daihatsu Valera (1996-2001), Daihatsu Gran Move(1996-2002), Daihatsu Move (1997-2002), Daihatsu Terios (1997-2005), Daihatsu Sirion (1998-2004), Daihatsu Mira Gino (1999-2004), Daihatsu Naked (2000-2004), Daihatsu Copen (2002), Daihatsu Tanto (2003), Daihatsu Xenia (2003), Daihatsu Esse(2005), Daihatsu Sonica (2005). Base on information, it is clearly stated that Daihatsu probably create new models in every year. Daihatsu was founded in 1907. It is easy for Daihatsu to create new car models in every year because it has longer car making experience. Daihatsu should send some expatriates to guide Perodua to built new car models because Daihatsu has enough expertise in producing car. Furthermore, the new models of Perodua was always depend on Daihatsu, therefore it will consume long period to launch a new models in domestic market. This may put Perodua behind others competitor and it may lost an opportunity for Perodua to capture more market share. In fact, there are several of cars which is rebadged from Daihatsu’s car models which is Perodua Kancil (1994) is rebadged third/fourth generation of the Mira (1990-1994), Perodua Kelisa (2002) is rebadged fifth generation of the Mira (1995) and Perodua Viva (2007) is rebadged sixth generation of the Mira (2002) which mean Perodua always rely on modification of Daihatsu models. Therefore, Daihatsu should give authorization for Perodua to developed new models because Perodua was more familiar with local customer needs and preferences. This is a win-win situation for both companies which mean Daihatsu can earn more profits in term of creating more new car models by Perodua. Moreover, Perodua is given a chance to develop their potential in creating a new car models and it is indirectly create job opportunity for local market which can build company a good reputation. Secondly is functional strategy, Perodua should concentrate in financial strategy and Research, and Development strategy (R D) and Human Resource Management strategy (HRM). In financial strategy, Perodua should control the cost of create a new car models whether it is over budget. Perodua might spend in promotion cost to exposure the existence of new car models and R D cost for produce a good quality and innovation cars. In R D strategy, Perodua can either choose technological leader or technological follower. Perodua would choose technological followership because it is lower the cost of product or value activities by learning from the leader’s experience such as their partner Daihatsu. Daihatsu was supply those car components and designs which mean Perodua does not actually produce any in house designs or engineering for the main components. Base on the Human Resource Management (HRM) strategy, Perodua can create its own car models by training local people rather than always depend on its partner-Daihatsu. By creating more new idea, Perodua suggest to cultivate talent people through giving scholarship for local students to study the course of Transportation design. The local students have opportunity to learn the skills of design of cars. For example, the Umea Institute of Design at Umea University Sweden offering young design students from all over the world to its two-year Master of Arts degree program in Transportation Design. Training local employee is cheaper than sending foreign expertise to develop the company. Improvement of car feature and car design Automotive design is primarily concerned with developing the visual appearance or aesthetics of the vehicle and also involved in the creation of the product concept. Moreover, automotive design consists 3 main parts which is interior design, exterior design, and color and trim design. Therefore, it is one of the important parts in making a car. Before go in more depth for the explanation, it is important to know what is the differences between all the 3 kinds of design. Simply put, the responsible for the design of the exterior of the vehicle is to develop the proportions, shape, and surfaces of the vehicle. However, the responsible for the design of the vehicle interior develops the proportions, shape, placement, and surfaces for the instrument panel, seats, door trim panels, headliner, pillar trims, and etc. Here the emphasis is on the comfort of the passengers. For the color and trim design, it’s responsible for the research, design, and development of all interior and exterior colors and materials used on a vehicle. These include paints, plastics, fabric designs, leather, grains, carpet, headliner, wood trim, and so on. Color, contrast, texture, and pattern must be carefully combined to give the vehicle a unique interior environment experience. As we know, Perodua has come out one series of automobile since it founded in Malaysia; Kancil (year of 1994), Kelisa (year of 2001), Kenari (year of 2000), Myvi (year of 2005), Viva (year of 2007), and the most recently is Nautica which is in the year of 2008. Although the car designs is different from each other in terms of exterior design, interior design, and color and trim design; yet there serve a same purpose for each design which mean it’s wanted to make the automobile more attractive to look, easily and convenient to use, and so on. For example, headlamp, front turn signal, this is all the aspect that must be consider when design a car because this is a basic needs for each and every vehicles. Without these facilities, it is worthless for one vehicle and indeed, it can’t count as an automobile. A good design for these facilities is a bonus and can reinforce the perception of the user on Perodua automobile. Hence, Perodua must perceive a way to improve its car design in order to boost the sales and performance of the company. There is some ways to achieve this objective, firstly, Perodua can organize a car design competition via university or open to everyone that is interested. For example, Domus Academy and Audi Group have launched the second edition of the Desire Design Competition, which asks participants to create a dream car and offers scholarships for the 2009-2010 Master in Car Design. This is a reciprocal strategy for both parties which mean that Perodua can buy and capture the creative idea as much as they want from the participants; while in return, Perodua can offer a job for who is winning in the competition and help him or her in building her or his career path. This indirectly can build a strong brand name and a great reputation in the society. For this case, it can say that Perodua has to focus on its human resources functional strategy. In this competitive and changing business environment, Perodua has to always ensure that it company is capable enough to deal with this changing environment. As we know, employees are the one who running the whole company, it can reflect that human resources are playing the essential role and human resources were so the valuable assets to one company. Therefore, Perodua should act as a talent scout to search for the talented performer through organizing some activities and have to appreciate every talent employee who is fully contributed to their company. Secondly, company must set a goal to encourage their employee to getting award because t show that the company is putting a lot of effort on designing a car and thus, achieving high sales is not a big deal for that particular company. As a proof, the ever popular MYVI which was launched on 25th May 2005 has been awarded the prestigious BEST MODEL OF THE YEAR (MALAYSIA) award from Frost Sullivan. Frost and Sullivan is an internationally renowned growth consultancy company and are represented in various countries around the world. The company honors and recognizes companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service and strategic product development. Award recipients at the Frost Sullivan ASEAN Automotive Awards is noted to clearly demonstrate outstanding leadership in their own market segments and have utmost focus on a customer centric strategy. Several evaluation criteria that were taken into consideration were; revenue growth, market share, growth in market share, leadership in product innovation, marketing strategy and business development strategy. Therefore, it is clearly to state that one good design car and good feature car have a direct relationship with the sales. It is because customer will only buy a car that they are affordable but also possess a good design and good feature on it. Improvement of car quality It has been 10 years since Perodua was established as the second national car-maker and within a decade, it has risen to the challenge and become a household name in Malaysia. Starting from scratch, Perodua quickly rose to become the No. 2 automotive brand in the country, a position it has maintained till today. Meanwhile, PERODUA was so the first car manufacturer in Malaysia to achieve the prestigious ISO 9002 and ISO 9001 certification awarded by the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA) from the United Kingdom. To maintain its position in the local marketplace, Perodua need to ensure that there is always an improvement for the vehicles they produce but still at an affordable price. There are many dimension of quality which is performance, features, reliability, conformance, durability, serviceability, and aesthetics. One quality car is also means that it is a safety car at the same times in the perception of the passengers or occupants. First and foremost, we know that supplier is playing an important role in regard with the car quality improvement. Therefore, Perodua has to ensure it choosing a trustable supplier who is supply the quality auto parts in producing a quality vehicles. Hence, it shouldn’t overlook each and every small accessories part, sometimes it couldn’t be success without these little small auto parts contribution. From this point of view, it is important to know that here the growth strategy in the corporation strategy is playing a crucial role. We suggest Perodua to have a cooperative contractual relationship with their suppliers which mean Perodua purchase the resources from its supplier through long term contract instead of keep on changing it auto part supplier. This long-term relationship can bring a win-win situation for both parties. Secondly, practicing quality control in the assembly process can ensure the output its produce is meeting the standards and quality. What is so called a quality car? It can measure in term of durability and performance. One good performance car is easy to be control by occupants because of its good car structure, horsepower, engine and etc. Moreover, normally a car still can function after use up to quite a long time only it can counted as a durable car otherwise it may not worth to buy a car that only can last for 2 to 3 years. It is because transportation nowadays is a very important element that everyone must use it every day even they can just afford to have a compact but not a luxury car, but at least have one for every household. In this scenario, implementing a quality control in the assembly process is related with the quality control functional strategy. his quality control department is responsible to ensure each and every stages that implement in the assembly process must meeting the standard, hence, it can reduce the repairing cost, lost of sales cost, and etc. Besides from product quality, services quality before and after-sale services is also a very important element to the company to converting buyers into die-hard fans and improve company image. The after-sales objectives is fulfill customer satisfactio n, customer retention, efficiency in work and job flow, both for the distributor and dealer, and high service absorption for dealers. Perodua services provided such as maintenance service packages (from 1,000km till 100,000km). Service interval at every 5,000km or 3 months whichever earlier, 45 minutes vehicle serviced without any complaint, part replacement and repair, an accident repair body repair, insurance claim, Insurance road tax renewal, warranty job, air-conditioner service, radiator coolant, replacement brake bleeding system, front bear brake Service, valve clearance adjustment ,V-belt replacement, and wiper blade replacement service. Perodua needs to improve the services quality of before sale and after-sale services. The company should concentrate in functional strategy. In the functional strategy, Perodua is suggesting to implement human resource management (HRM) strategy and information technology strategy. In the human resource management, manager should do appraisal of worker performance such as 360-degree appraisal. This might help the company to increase workers performance and job satisfaction. A competent and customer-focused service and parts business can be achieved only with competent and service-oriented staff. Perodua responsible to give training specialist After-Sales staff to upgrade their performances and skills. Training program that included of teach employee about the manners to deal with the customers start from before sales until after-sales services. Furthermore, Perodua should increasingly use the information technology to provide business units with competitive advantage. Perodua must always upload the latest information in the webpage such as latest services provided, latest new car models, latest prices and activities launch by showroom. Perodua is recommended launching mail-order companies, among other factors, on the opportunity that the customer has of paying in installments. Clearly this incentive could serve as a loyalty retention scheme as the customer is bound for the credit period. Moreover, customers frequently burden by monthly installment, producers’ banks might offering finance schemes for new cars might also consider offering the end customer financing for after-sales products. Reference 2009 Perodua MPV Rendered Speculation, Retrieved February 20, 2009, from http://paultan. org/archives/2008/09/21/2009-perodua-mpv-rendered-speculation/ 2009 Perodua MPV:new artists impression. Retrieved February 21, 2009, from http://paultan. org/archives/2008/11/06/2009-perodua-mpv-new-artists-impression/ Corporate Information. Retrieved February 20, 2009, from http://www. perodua. com. my/index. php? section=corporate Desire Design Competition 2008. Retrieved at, †¦Ã¢â‚¬ ¦.. , from http://www. carbodydesign. com/archive/2008/11/18-desire-design-competition-2008/ Perodua. Retrieved at, †¦. from, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Perodua Perodua’s New Learning Centre. Retrieved February 19, 2009, from http://www. fleet-asia. com/news/2008/12/perodua%E2%80%99s_new_learning_centre The Development of the Automobile Industry and the Road Ahead http://www. statistics. gov. my/eng/images/stories/files/journalDOSM/V204_AUTOMOBILE. pdf [pic]