week 3 discussion identify cadillac s battle options

Read the article below. Use the article to answer the following:

• As with the Gladiator example, there are two possible battles under consideration. Identify these two distinct battles faced by Cadillac (5 points.)
• From the information given (don’t change the question, don’t assume facts that are not in the question), CHOOSE (and identify) one of the possible battles and discuss Cadillac’s relative strength and market stakes (10 points) within that one market.

3. recommend resource movement (ADRA) relative to the battle.

Hint: To help you learn what’s important when evaluating a strategic situation some of the more ADR-relevant facts have been bolded.

Cadillac’s Strategic Situation

When General Motors recruited Johan de Nysschen to lead Cadillac in 2014, the prominent auto executive hoped for a cavalry of new sport-utility vehicles to shore up the luxury brand’s weakest position.

As it awaited reinforcements, Cadillac soldiered on with a legion of widely praised sports sedans, the kind of beautifully engineered vehicles its German rivals would have been proud to call their own.

But now Cadillac finds itself overrun by German and Asian S.U.V.s and G.M.’s leaders have parted ways with the man once seen as the brand’s future. And America’s premier luxury car brand must reckon with an uncomfortable truth.

“Cadillac is just not selling what people want to buy today, especially in America,” said Karl Brauer, executive publisher of Kelley Blue Book. G.M. had lured Mr. de Nysschen — the rare company outsider to lead a G.M. division — on the strength of a successful stint atop Audi of America. His first major act was to place physical and psychological distance between Cadillac and Detroit, moving Cadillac’s headquarters from Motown to Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood in 2015.

In New York, Mr. de Nysschen believed, Cadillac could attract top talent, take the pulse of consumer trends and woo the coastal buyers it had struggled to win over. He also outlined G.M.’s plans to invest $12 billion by 2020 to develop eight new Cadillac models, including the kind of crossover S.U.V.s that had been conspicuously absent from its lineup.

“How is it possible that we have so few crossovers from this iconic American luxury brand?” Mr. de Nysschen said in an interview at the time. “The Germans have more than I can count on two hands.”

At BMW alone, that count now includes the X1, X2, X3, X4, X5 and X6, with the most expensive, the three-row X7, arriving next year. All that from a German brand that built its reputation on high-performance sport sedans and was once criticized for pandering to American tastes by building S.U.V.s. In ironic contrast, while G.M. is known for its expertise in S.U.V.s and trucks, Cadillac has just one car-based S.U.V.: the midsize XT5, which merely replaced the defunct SRX.

Johan de Nysschen in 2015. His first major act as president of Cadillac was the move to New York. At the time, he discussed the brand’s plan to add more crossovers to its lineup, a change that has been slow to materialize.CreditYana Paskova for The New York Times

Even as rival luxury brands have minted money with downsized S.U.V.s, Cadillac only showed its inaugural compact crossover, the 2019 XT4, at the New York International Auto Show in March. And perhaps more puzzling, Cadillac’s greatest sport-utility success story, the massive Escalade, is now being upstaged by Lincoln’s red-hot Navigator, whose style and lavish interior have impressed critics and buyers.

The result is that Cadillac, a brand that had begun to transform its stodgy, retiree-only image during G.M.’s post-bankruptcy comeback, is struggling. Cadillac’s annual domestic sales had rebounded above 180,000 in 2013, up from about 110,000 in the recession doldrums of 2009. But sales plunged to 156,000 by 2017, even as the German brands were soaring. In the closely watched luxury race, Mercedes rode its own S.U.V.-heavy lineup to 337,236 sales in 2017, while BMW found 305,685 buyers, nipping Lexus’s 305,132.

Now, GM’s leadership has replaced the South African-born Mr. de Nysschen with Steve Carlisle, the president of G.M. Canada, who joined the company 36 years ago. In a statement, Dan Ammann, G.M.’s president said that Mr. de Nysschen had set “a stronger foundation” for Cadillac.
“Looking forward, the world is changing rapidly, and, beginning with the launch of the new XT4, it is paramount that we capitalize immediately on the opportunities that arise from this rate of change,” Mr. Ammann said.

That 2019 XT4 finally goes on sale this fall, priced from $35,790, and it will need to elbow its way through a crowded party of compact S.U.V.s. A three-row XT6 is also in the works, but George Peterson, president of the research firm AutoPacific, did not expect it to arrive before 2020. Mr. Peterson already counts some 38 small crossovers in the marketplace, ranging from $20,000 to more than $90,000, and said that count should soon reach 45.

“Cadillac is recognizing that it’s a crossover world, but they’ve been slow to get off the dime,” Mr. Peterson said. “They’ll be launching into the teeth of a hugely competitive battleground.”

 

Looking for a similar assignment? Our writers will offer you original work free from plagiarism. We follow the assignment instructions to the letter and always deliver on time. Be assured of a quality paper that will raise your grade. Order now and Get a 15% Discount! Use Coupon Code "Newclient"