Read the thesis “Pepsi across cultures: analysis and cross-cultural comparison o
ID: 394975 • Letter: R
Question
Read the thesis “Pepsi across cultures: analysis and cross-cultural comparison of Pepsi websites”... Read the thesis “Pepsi across cultures: analysis and cross-cultural comparison of Pepsi websites” By Alexandra Chirkova before attempting the experiential exercise below: https://gupea.ub.gu.se/bitstream/2077/26744/1/gupea_2077_26744_1.pdf
The Renault Nissan alliance established in March 1999 is the first industrial and commercial partnership of its kind involving a French and Japanese company. The alliance invested more than 1 billion rand in upgrading Nissan’s manufacturing plant in Rosslyn, outside Pretoria to increase output and produce the Nissan NP200 pickup and the Renault Sandero for the South African market. Visit the Renault-Nissan website at: http://www.renaultr.com to see where factories reside for each car group. Compare and contrast the similarities and differences in these markets. Then answer these 3 questions on the forum: a) How do you think cultural differences affect the way the firms operate in South Africa and in the USA. b) In what way is culture a factor in auto sales? c) Is it possible for a car company to transcend national culture and produce a global automobile that is accepted by people in every culture? Why or Why not. Begin your posts and see where your discussions take you
Explanation / Answer
1. Comparing cultures in the US with cultures in South Africa using Berlitz interactive cultural map, we find that
With these differences and similarities, we might deduce that the firm operates differently in both countries. You might expect to find that in South Africa there is a high value given for family occasions and they might be flexible with giving leaves for family occasions. Due to high power distance in South Africa you might find that whenever a higher seniority or team leader takes a decision, all other team members respect it and never argue or object to it. They would also treat their managers and leaders with respect and formality and they would use formal titles to call them.
In the US, you might find that the team members object and argue a lot with decisions of their leaders and discuss it to try to find better solutions. They treat their management without any formalities and no titles.
Other differences outside the scope of Hofstede map would be that in the US, communication between teams tend to be mostly through emails. On the contrary, in South Africa we might find that most communication is verbal and they use emails less.
In the US, people are very punctual and you expect employees to arrive at the same time and leave at the same time. Also they would all come to meetings on time. In South Africa, timings might be flexible. The firm might be working on a flexible hours system and we might see that people might show up late to work and leave late as well. Also it would not be strange if one of the employees arrived late to a meeting.
2. culture in auto sales
There are many ways in which culture affects auto sales. It is very important to understand culture to be able to introduce a successful sales plan in a new region. Understanding the customer behaviour, how they spend and how much they are willing to spend, on what they are willing to spend their money, and what are their needs and luxury requirements is the only way through which you can offer a customer a successful car which you can incorporate what they really need in a car at a suitable price.
It is also important to note that corporate sales usually are a huge segment of car sales globally. It might be helpful to study corporate needs in certain regions. For example, in Middle East countries with vast deserts and lots of business happening on desert sites, it would be a necessity to introduce 4x4 cars which is suitable for all the off road driving to reach drilling or construction sites.
One of the very important cultural factors that affect auto sales is the culture of buying used cars instead of new cars. This happens due to the customer’s feeling that investing in a new car is not a very wise investment, due to the big drop in price the car experiences after a few years of using the car or due to the kilometres it was utilised. This fast depreciation does not encourage customers to buy new cars.
3.
Renault has a global car, namely Sandero. Sandero was initially sold in South American market, but then found acceptance in all other markets, according to Renault.
My personal opinion on this would be that with the increase in fuel prices and with the increase in traffic everywhere and decrease of parking space, the demand has increased globally for a small family car with spacious interior, as well as low fuel consumption. This might have been the reason why Renault Sandero became popular worldwide.
Nissan has its global car, namely “Tiida”. Similar reasons make Tiida succeed globally; spacious interior, high performance and its efficiency in fuel consumption. Nissan also released its “Note” that is intended to be a global hatchback. It was initially sold in Japan, and it will be sold in Europe this year according to Nissan.
In addition to the global increase in fuel prices and increase in traffic, there is an increasing global concern about the CO2 emissions by current motor vehicles, due to its growing effect on the environment, and the greenhouse effect due to the hole in the Ozone layer. This made the need arise to the introduction of zero emissions cars. This was the main motivation behind the alliance; Renault-Nissan. They decided to work together on R&D to be the first to introduce global zero-emissions cars to the world.
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