Caterpillar Inc.’s Vision
Caterpillar is one of the world’s leading specialized equipment manufacturers for mining, construction, transportation, and other industries. A wide range of other products is also produced under the Cat® brand. The corporation includes more than 480 units located in 50 different countries on all continents except Antarctica (Lysak et al., 2020). The company’s headquarters are located in the United States. Caterpillar’s areas of activity are construction, mining, and road repair industries. Caterpillar is also a leading manufacturer of diesel engines. Drives produced by it are successfully operated on ships, land transport, power plants, special equipment, diverse equipment. Due to the introduction of advanced technologies, Caterpillar engines provide high power with maximum environmental friendliness and minimal fuel consumption. This work will summarize and analyze this company’s vision, competitive advantages, and global strategy.
Summary
In order to assess the relationship between a company’s actions and its mission, it is necessary to summarize this concept. According to the vision, the company’s management sees a world in which the basic needs of all people are met in an environmentally sustainable manner. In addition to meeting needs, companies improve the quality of the environment and the communities in which people live and work. The company’s mission is to promote economic growth through infrastructure and energy development. In addition, Caterpillar sees its mission as caring for the environment and providing solutions that support communities and protect the planet. The company’s strategy is to provide work environments, products, services, and solutions that enable the productive and efficient use of resources. Management actively innovates and develops technology to enhance the sustainability of Caterpillar’s products, services, solutions, and operations. Today’s actions correlate well with the company’s mission. Caterpillar is taking concrete steps to improve production efficiency while reducing environmental damage. For example, in 2020, the company made a deal to acquire CarbonPoint Solutions Corporation, a U.S. carbon capture technology company (Lysak et al., 2020). In addition to increasing production efficiency through patented CarbonPoint technologies, the deal also significantly reduced the company’s impact on the environment. CarbonPoint Solutions’ carbon capture systems are applied to engines and turbines at oil and gas facilities, distributed power and industrial plants, and waste-to-energy facilities. This has helped Caterpillar reduce greenhouse gas emissions, thereby reducing harm to the environment. Thus, we can say that its goals and mission are entirely consistent with its actions and strategy.
Recommendations
At the moment, the company’s primary focus is to reduce the harm caused to nature by production. I think this mission is excellent, but I would also recommend that the focus include meeting the production needs of the company’s employees. Such needs include ensuring complete safety, maintaining a healthy work environment, and decent pay. I am convinced that the success of a company depends to a large extent on employee satisfaction with their workplace. People who enjoy their work in a healthy workplace and complete safety are dedicated to the good of the company. That is why incorporating a company’s mission to provide the most decent working conditions in the marketplace will have a good impact on the company’s performance. This introduction will also help improve Caterpillar’s operational goals by complementing them with more employee-friendly talking points.
Caterpillar Inc.’s Competitive Advantages and Disadvantages
One of the keys to Caterpillar’s success is a systematic analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of its competitive advantages and disadvantages.
Summary
To begin, consider the strength of the Caterpillar brand’s competitive advantage. They include the company’s good reputation, large-scale assets, and strong global distribution network. The company’s good reputation is based on the fact that it is well known worldwide for the quality of its products. The company also has significant assets that can be used to support further growth and business development. In addition, the firm has an extensive global network of distributors, which contributes to financial stability. Caterpillar’s weaknesses, which affect its competitive disadvantages, include poor marketing and limited connections in emerging markets. Limited business ties in emerging markets prevent the company from maximizing revenues. For example, although the company already operates in China, Caterpillar still does not have an extensive network of distributors in the Chinese market. Weak marketing means that the company does not put enough effort into brand promotion (Lysak et al., 2020). As long as customers are personally familiar with the quality of products and competition is low, the company may not feel marketing. However, when worthy competitors appear, the lack of a marketing strategy can harm the saleability of products.
Recommendations
Based on the analysis results, as a recommendation, Caterpillar can improve its performance by establishing investments in marketing. The products the company offers are very similar to those offered by competitors, so brand recognition should not be neglected. Caterpillar can also improve its financial performance by expanding its distribution network. The company should focus on emerging markets because these markets have high economic growth rates. For example, the company can increase the number of Caterpillar distributors in countries such as China.
Plan
A plan can be proposed to measure and monitor the recommended operational changes in Caterpillar Inc.’s competitive advantage to achieve organizational goals. It would consist of introducing tiered measurement tools for monthly performance reporting. To measure changes related to marketing strategy, it is suggested that regular surveys be conducted among customers of the segment Caterpillar is targeting. In this way, it will be possible to determine how often customers choose in favor of the studied company. To measure the effectiveness of changes in working with small markets, it is suggested to make a monthly report on expanding its contacts with such areas. The goal would be to increase distribution centers in such areas to bring them in line with the number of distributors in the rest of the markets.
Caterpillar’s Global Strategy
Caterpillar employs intensive growth strategies for market penetration and market development. This combination is based on a variety of markets around the world. As Caterpillar’s primary intensive business development strategy, different markets have different characteristics requiring market penetration or development.
Summary
Market penetration is Caterpillar Inc’s primary intensive growth strategy (Arasu, 2022). The firm already has a significant presence in most major markets worldwide. In these markets, the company focuses on sales growth from the current population of customers, which is the goal of market penetration. Another feature of the company’s global strategy is not much emphasis on new product development. The company mainly focuses on improving existing products. The firm rarely introduces an entirely new product. Instead, Caterpillar’s existing products are modified to provide new features and add value for customers. Nevertheless, one can see that the strategy is well developed and meets the company’s global goals.
Recommendations
To improve the company’s efficiency, I can also recommend several operational changes. For example, Caterpillar can improve productivity through differentiation. The company should increase its investment in research and development to create unique products. Currently, Caterpillar’s heavy equipment, engines, and financial services are very similar to those available from competitors. Moreover, as mentioned above, the company is not investing enough in marketing its products. Because of this, its global strategy, aimed at providing exceptional services to its customers, suffers greatly. To increase its competitiveness, the company should invest more in new product development and include this as a goal in its global strategy.
Plan
Interim goals and timelines must be entered to measure the effectiveness of the recommended operational changes in Caterpillar Inc’s global strategy. For example, one could schedule one month to revise global strategy goals toward better innovation management. Then, an innovation department should be established to develop and report on equipment innovation. One could set a deadline of three months for this department to develop a draft innovation plan and approve it with senior management. In this way, the innovation process can be conceptualized and streamlined so that the company’s comets are always provided with new and advanced solutions.
References
Arasu, R. (2022). Stock accuracy during the Warehouse Transfer Process of India Distribution Centre, Caterpillar. Journal of Production, Operations Management, and Economics, 2(2), 7–9. Web.
Lysak, A., Marmon, R., & Schoen, E. J. (2020). Whistleblowing and Caterpillar Inc.’s Swiss tax strategy. Journal of business ethics education, 17(1), 237-250. Web.