From Auto Industry to Electromobility Industry: What can we learn from strategic and marketing theoretical frameworks?

Abstract:

Talking about the car industry: marketers say “the cycle of life of the product is declining”, economists add “the economic model of the industry reaches its limits”, sociologists and environmentalists declare “our system of mobility is not sustainable”, and politicians wonder about “the need for new territories, laws, and public resource allocations”. All these points of view result from some converging and hopeless diagnoses for the traditional auto industry: hydrocarbon shortages, ecological pressures, economic constraints, urbanization growth, changes of needs and behaviors with young people all over the world.
In this context and for the next decades, it’s easy to predict radical changes for the auto industry. The car manufacturers – those few giants with evocative names of the first entrepreneurs of the century- are obviously among the most concerned. For how long will they keep control of the paradigm they established along the past century? The growth in new and emerging countries will allow them to sell with profit personal and thermic engines for many years. However, it sounds like a swansong blaze of glory.
Facing the transformation of the current paradigm and the uncertainty of their future business models, the car manufacturers are in search of news. They participate actively in think tanks (xxx give some names) and prospective studies (xxx), they finance university research programs (Stelab, xxxx). The main questions they need to address are 1) what will be the future car industry? 2) What will be their strategic position in the electromobility and/or mobility industry(ies), and 3) what will be the sustainable business models?
The objective of this paper is to explore these issues through the lenses of two conceptual frameworks in strategic marketing: the- BOS (Blue Ocean Strategy) and the Market Orientation (MO) approaches. The first, BOS framework (Kim and Mauborgne, 2005) helps to think out of the box by creating uncontested market space based on value innovation. The second, Market Orientation brings additional insights on how managerial transformation should occur for increasing the customer value and superior performance of the firm.
The article is organized in three parts. In the next session called “From Auto Industry to Electromobility Industry”, we shape the state of the industry. Then, we detail the BOS and MO frameworks. Finally, we propose a conceptual roadmap to reconstruct the market boundaries of the industry.