Royal Enfield (RE) 2019

Abstract

In today`s fast changing digital world, customers have the power, and customer experience has become critical to any business sustained growth. This case focuses on how customer centric innovation & digital marketing approach has led the company Royal Enfield (RE), to create a cult-community & strong brand value with its customers. RE, is a 2-wheeler manufacturing company headquartered in India. From the brink of bankruptcy in early 2010s, the company turned around their operations within 5 years and by 2019, became the global leader in the premium motorcycle segment, overtaking veteran players like Ducati, Harley Davidson, etc. by global sales numbers. RE’s disruptive value-oriented business model and leisure lifestyle bikes created the blue-ocean strategy in the cost competitive market of India. Additionally, their inbound hybrid marketing strategies driven by deep understanding of cultural nuances of India like Home bias, association with the army etc. and co-creation of brand experience with customers approach led to rapid growth of 96% market share in the target segment and financial success along with a cult, loyal community of riders. Despite the leader position in India, the international expansion strategy particularly to the developed countries like Europe & UK, the biggest market for motorcycles as well as the origin for the brand RE, the success rate had been relatively poor. Under the leadership of new CEO in April 2019, Vinod.K. Dasari, the company is determined to create a new RE 2.0 strategy to achieve internationalization. As a firm from an emerging market, whose brand image generally considered tardy innovation and cheap, could RE become a resilient brand to fuel a new international growth? Could their brand-led strategy be a sustainable competitive advantage in a global context? Could they become the first Indian motorcycle company to be successful with developed countries customers? What roadmap could Dasari create?

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