Porsche’s Final Case Study And Strategic Plan Business Case Study (Case Study Sample)

Porsche’s Final Case Study And Strategic Plan
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Porsche’s History
Porsche AG is an automobile manufacturer based in German, which specializes mainly in manufacturing high performance sports cars, sedans and SUVs. It was founded by Ferdinand Porsche in 1931 together with his son and son in law Anton Piech. The company was first known as Porsche Engineering Office because during its early days, it was not founded to be an automotive maker but an engineering service provider. Its main objective was to sell and offer design and engineering services to other auto industries. After Adolf Hitler came to power, he commissioned Porsche in 1934 to manufacture “a people’s car” also referred to as “Volkswagen”. After World War II, the Porsche design firm relocated to Gmund, Austria and started designing sports and racing cars in 1946. Due to continuous expansion, it relocated its facilities from Gmund to Stuttgart to manufacture more cars. In 1950, the Porsche 356 was launched at the Stuttgart factory. In 1951, Ferdinand Porsche died and his son Ferry Porsche took over. In mid 1960s, a new Porsche design was in development and in 1964 the unique Type 911 Porsche was introduced. Other models like, Type 912,924 and 928 followed the Type 911. In 1973, the firm went public and became a joint stock company that was referred to as Porsche AG (HYPERLINK "http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/porsche-ag-history/" \t "_blank"History of Porsche AG – Funding Universe, n.d.).
In 2005, the company made a move outside sports car manufacturing. In the partnership created with Volkswagen, Porsche began the production of a luxurious Sedan car called the Panamera, which faced a severe competition from other luxury cars produced by Mercedes, Audi and Aston Martin. Despite a change in product line, Porsche outside engineering business still offered services to carmakers. For many years, VW had been Porsches main client but by 1980s, it was working with many carmakers, which led to the formation of Porsche Engineering Services in North America, which later became Porsche Engineering Group in 2001. The outsourcing of these services was rapidly growing in the car making industry. There were some big outsourcing companies such as Italy’s Stola, UK based Hawtal Whiting, and two US based companies MSX International and Modern Engineering Inc. After acquiring a 31percent stake of Volkswagen, Porsche sales of high performance cars increased at an outstanding rate, outpacing Ferrari, Maserati and Lamborghini (Karim & Adan, 2006).