Business Strategy for Market Expansion: A Case Study in the Arboriculture Market
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Typ
Examensarbete för masterexamen
Program
Publicerad
2022
Författare
Hedenborn, Fredrik
Viktorsson, Philip
Modellbyggare
Tidskriftstitel
ISSN
Volymtitel
Utgivare
Sammanfattning
Following the industry life cycle, markets eventually reach decline, forcing companies to search
outside of their core areas to find new opportunities for growth. This process poses managerial
challenges since new opportunities that align with the firm’s internal and external environment
needs to be identified. Driven by a stagnating market, this is now the situation of the
investigated case company, Husqvarna, and they are therefore looking to refocus their strategy
towards a new market, namely arboriculture. However, this transition offers several challenges
that need to be handled and the aim of this thesis is therefore to support Husqvarna’s strategy
formulation as well as increase the theoretical understanding of the arboriculture market. The
study is of a qualitative nature and consists of a case study and a literature review, in order to
understand the internal and external environment of the case company.
This was carried out by conducting 19 semi-structured interviews with arborists, store
representatives, and employees at Husqvarna. The findings of the study shows that arborists
value a range of attributes when purchasing equipment and that the attributes varied depending
on what category of equipment that was discussed. Some attributes that were mentioned by
the arborists were innovativeness, quality, safety, ergonomics, and reliability, and all the
arborists interviewed exhibited strong brand preferences. The primary distribution channels,
physical and online stores, both had their advantages, according to the arborists. For physical
stores, accessibility, seller competence, testing products, and service and maintenance were
discussed as benefits. Lack of available physical stores and a complete assortment were
dimensions discussed regarding online stores. In the results from the interviewed stores, the
long and close relationship with the end customer was emphasized, as well as the exchange
of feedback.
The resources and capabilities analyzed at Husqvarna were market position, brand, market
intelligence, product development capabilities, marketing, sales department, and dealer
network. The key success factors of the arboriculture industry were concluded to be: brand,
safety and the ability to convey robustness, well designed and innovative products, ability to
understand the challenges of the arborist, capability to turn market intel into innovative
products, and establish the brand in the arborist community. When assessing Husqvarna’s
resources and capabilities, the result showed that the brand, product development capabilities,
sales department, and dealer network all constitute sustainable competitive advantages, while
marketing, market position, and market intel do not. Lastly, the analysis concludes that the case
company should focus on extending their brand to complement products and deploy their strong
product development capabilities efficiently in adjacent product categories. Furthermore, the
competence and incentive structure of the sales department and dealer network should be
focus areas for improvement.
Beskrivning
Ämne/nyckelord
Business Strategy , Resource-Based View , Industry Key Success Factors , Brand Extension , Sustainable Competitive Advantage