市场学case8productandservicestrategy.doc

Company case 8 (product and service strategy) Swatchmobile: is the time right for small cars? If someone asked you what a Swatch watch and a Mercedes-Benz automobile have in common, you would probably answer, “not much.” Perhaps you’d think the question was the lead in to a joke. After all, the Swatch is a disposable $35 to $50 fashion watch made on assembly lines from plastic parts. Mercedes, by contrast, prides itself on making the “best engineered cars in the world” – highly complex machines designed by engineers who cut no corners and make no compromises. An unlikely marriage Well, that all true, but the Swiss Corporation for Microelectronics and Watchmaking Industries (SMH) and Mercedes do have one thing in common – the Swatchmobile. In 1994, the two companies announced that they would jointly develop an innovative, subcompact, economy car designed to reach speeds of up to 90 miles per hour while getting 80 miles per gallon and costing about $10,000. The idea behind the joint venture was to combine Mercedes’ knowledge of how to design and build automobiles with SMH’s knowledge of microtechnology design and automated production. From the drawing board The Swatchmoblie concept results from the work of several dozen young jeans-and-sweatshirt-clad engineers who labored around the clock for three years in a secret garage in Biel, Switzerland. They conceived a two-seater car that would combine the safety features of a Mercedes with the funkiness of a Swatch watch. In addition to reaching high speeds and getting great fuel economy, the Swatchmobile would be about 20 percent smaller than a typical subcompact – the car’s overall length is 98.4 inches – you could park it side-ways in a typical parking space! To help accomplish all this, the engineers designed a 600 cc, three-cyclinder engine that would run on gasoline, electricity, or a combination of the two and weigh one-tenth the amount of a typical gas engine while achieving equal power. The unlikely marriage is als