Nano

In the second case, in spite of the fact that Ratan Tata had a very noble vision and was able to manufacture a disruptive product, the market did not accept the product because the company did not comprehend the psyche of the target audience. The promotion strategy used by the organization did not gel well with the customers. The following were the main learning that emerged out of the Tata Nano Case

         It is important to clearly decide your target customers. This was exemplified using how Tata Nano changed their focus from bike users to rural and semi-rural to urban 2^nd car buyers to modern day youth. The shift in focus is an excellent example of the fact that Tata Motors lacked a clear cut target audience.

         It is important to check the feasibility of a concept from sales perspective. Deriving a lesson out of the Nano example it was discussed how incorrect sales figure estimates led to overcapacity at Nano’s Sanand plant in Gujarat. Today it is struggling to sell even 5000 cars every month. Moreover, overly optimistic sales estimates also led to losses for Tata Motor dealers as they were asked to soar up their capacity by investing more working capital. Also, this led to lower dealer satisfaction and most dealers treat Tata Nano as a lower grade product than Manza and Indica because of the lower margins.

Western Digital - Selecting Customers

In the former case, even though Western digital had come out with the innovative product ahead of Seagate, the latter has a major part of the market share. The reasons attributed to this were 2 : lWestern Digital did research among the wrong target customers (mainframe computer users) whereas Seagate chose the right audience for its product medical electronics and then laptops.