How are the competitor’s products positioned in the electric drivetrain industry?

Problem

MotorCo pursued to benchmark the competitive landscape for three business segments, on-highway, off-highway, and marine, and to understand how the competitors are positioned in each. Among the competitors were 14 companies and their product portfolios, social media activity, mergers and acquisitions and financials were the scope of the case. The analysis was followed by SWOT analysis, competitive mapping, and recommendations for each business segment.

Situation

MotorCo wants to update its understanding of the competitive landscape in three of its main business segments, on-highway, off-highway and marine, with the focus on the critical products factors of the competitors.

All three segments are driven by the electrification trend caused by emissions regulations and a strong demand for energy efficiency. In addition, the mergers and acquisitions, financials and social media of the competitors should be analysed to see how the competitors are e.g. complementing their product offerings, growing or branding their products or position in the market.

MotorCo is focused on light and compact solutions whereas some competitors offer solutions with wider applications and power ranges. Electrification is, however, an emerging trend in all application markets and regions. The initial applications were found to be more common in the light vehicles and vessels.

Key Research Questions

Q1. What are the product strategies of competitors?
Q2. How are we positioned relative to the competitors?
Q3. How should we react to maintain current market position and future competitiveness?

Methodology

SprintlyWorks team conducted a three-phase project:

Phase 1 – Review all segment competitors’ profile, product information, M&A and social media

• Prepared company profiles with financials, strategic highlights, geographic presence and product overview
• Breakdown of product based on product description, its key features, applications and advantages
• Highlighted relevant M&A, joint ventures and partnerships to understand the future direction of competitor’s business
• Presented the social media presence for all competitors

Phase 2 – Conduct interview with product and business head leaders

• Clarified key product features for each business segment
• Understand the key success factors of each business segment

Phase 3 – Synthesised insights, competitive matrix, SWOT analysis, and recommendations

• Ranked competitors based on their respective strengths within the competitive landscape
• Presented the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and weaknesses based on top competitors in each segment
• Outlined future recommendations to MotorCo. based on the competitive analysis

Results

Based on the findings, SprintlyWorks team provided the following recommendations were made for MotorCo.
On-highway

• MotorCo. should focus on developing the latest motor propulsion technologies to become the market leader.
• MotorCo. should level out the competition by matching or outperforming power density, torque density and efficiency
• MotorCo. should have a balanced approach to ensuring long-term survivorship in the power and propulsion market via active social media engagement and assessing business partnerships.

Off-highway

• MotorCo. should analyse the market potential for a specific range of voltage, power and weight within off-highway applications.
• MotorCo. should select the appropriate application area based on its current offerings that can be extended to similar applications.
• MotorCo. should identify the geographies that support application-markets, where it would like to provide its products.

Marine

• MotorCo. should develop products for the niche subgroup of vessels and motor propulsion technologies.
• MotorCo. should get an early foothold in other markets for via partnerships or acquisitions