John Deere Business Case

John Deere Overview

            The company of discussion is John Deere, whose headquarters are located in Moline, Illinois. “John Deere’s mission is to double and double again the John Deere experience of genuine value for employees, customers, and shareholders. This will be accomplished by rapidly expanding global customer coverage on the farm site, worksite, home site, and turf site by being first in creating smart and innovative customer solutions through machines, service, and concepts. The company’s business strategies of running smart, running fast, and running lean will help John Deere achieve its mission” (Making a Fortune, 2015). Developing an advertising campaign before the marketing strategy could create potential problems for the company by getting the product out to the wrong market segments and therefore not being able to sell. When the product doesn’t sell, it sits in the lot and collects dust and rust. When the products don’t sell, employees lose jobs because business is slow. It’s a horrible cycle.

Marketing Consultant for John Deere

            There are many objectives I wish to accomplish for John Deere’s business-to-business marketing strategy and just the business success in itself. Reaching out to the right market segments is very important for Deere because the number one goal in marketing and anything else in this company is sales. Sales and profit go hand in hand and it is the company’s main focus. To achieve that goal, there are many other steps to take in the process. One important step to take it to build relationships with other businesses that could become suppliers and dealers.

There are two main market segments for John Deere, especially in the United States. One is farming and the other is construction. For farming, there are more specific areas we need to be focusing on. There is Midwest farmers that use strictly combines for their harvest and then there is also farmers in the south that would use John Deere’s cotton pickers instead of combines. There are products that can be used for most areas, also, which are balers for hay. There are even more specific areas to focus on in the construction department of things. There are many construction jobs out there that need different equipment for different uses. We build loader tractors, motor graders, articulated dump trucks, back hoes, and much more. Then there is a forestry side of things that falls between construction and farming. For this, we sell skidders and fellerbunchers for chopping down and hauling away huge trees. We need to get the attention of the big farmers and various construction companies before our competitors do. Our biggest competitor for our construction side is Caterpillar. There are a few big competitors for the farming side, which would be International Harvester, New Holland, and Farmall. The markets are very close with John Deere Construction and Caterpillar Construction. It’s pretty close on the farming side, too. The value proposition for both our construction and farming equipment over our competitor’s is the fact that we have the best service. If anyone has a problem with their equipment out in the field, John Deere is right out there to fix it so customers can keep working. The quality and on-time delivery side of things are right up there competing closely with our competitors as well.

The four P’s are important when it comes to the consumer market. First of all, John Deere products are made to the best quality standard as possible and in a reasonable amount of time so we can ship them out to our consumers. Our prices are always competitive if not lower than our top competitor’s prices. The products are always well worth the money, along with the service technicians that are on call and available when needed. John Deere is well known all over the United States and throughout other countries in the globe. We have dealerships all over the nation that are available to our customers in many locations. However, if there isn’t a John Deere deal nearby, our products are always available online. John Deere provides various promotions, also. There are always special deals on our huge equipment, especially our farming tractors.

The four P’s come in handy when it comes to business-to-business marketing, also. John Deere sells to various dealerships all around the nation so that they can then turn around to sell the product and make a profit off of it. There isn’t a product John Deere doesn’t provide to these dealers. They can get anything from farm equipment to construction to lawn equipment. As it is stated above, these dealerships are located all across the United States where we ship equipment to from our factories, which are also spread out over the nation. The promotion that we have for our dealers is when we sell a bulk amount of equipment to the dealers for a fair and profitable price. That way they can make a reasonable profit, too.

The competitive advantage that John Deere has over its competitors is both good and bad. It lacks in some aspects, but really thrives in others. The good areas in competitive advantage that Deere has is price-base advantage, quality-based advantage, perceived quality advantage, and brand-based advantage. Pricing for our construction equipment compared to Caterpillar equipment is considerably lower. Our quality compared to recent Caterpillar quality has been outstanding, also. After a huge downfall on the quality side at Caterpillar and some recalls, John Deere’s perceived quality advantage has increased. Lastly, our brand-based advantage. It depends on the area. Down in Peoria where Caterpillar is based out of, it is much more popular. However, in the quad cities and the rest of the Midwest, John Deere is the number one brand around. John Deere’s brand is even huge in the south. When listening to a country song, we always hear John Deere’s name.

The product life cycle for John Deere is always recurring. About every four to six years the company cycles, mostly because of elections. A year ago John Deere started to slow way down because of customers holding off. That is when the company winded back up in the introduction stage where we were introducing new models and series of equipment and what kind of deals we had to offer. Right now we are in between the maturity and growing stage, and then awhile before the next election starts we will be extremely busy again.

In order to get our current consumers to purchase more products, there are a few steps John Deere can take. They can offer better deals to customers and the government sometimes signs a bill to give more money to construction or farming. When that happens, farmers and construction companies always buy more. Another way to get current consumers to buy more is to engineer and then introduce new equipment series. John Deere can always add new options and attachments for their tractors, also.

For other businesses to buy more of our product, John Deere would need to make much better deals. Deere also needs to work on building better business relationships worldwide. The more we are connected with other business, the better. John Deere is affiliated with so many different companies, even locally. “The John Deere Technology Innovation Center delivers customer- centered solutions in the agriculture production system through focused research, accelerated incubation, and differentiated experience.  The Center’s mission is to advance innovation, research, and information technology for John Deere. Through the technology innovation center and the relationship with Iowa State University, Deere gains access to students and academic experts from a broad range of domain areas, including engineering, agronomy, computer science, statistics, industrial design, psychology and information library sciences” (ISU Park, 2015). John Deere is affiliated with groups all over the globe, too, such as the Society of Women Engineers where they had an engineering event with women over in India (SWE, 2017). There are far too many affiliations with John Deere to list, but it sure is an impressive amount.

There are many great business decisions that John Deere makes. These decisions are in marketing, scheduling, finance, and even on the lines in the plants. There are many improvements that this company needs to make, too. No business is perfect, but Deere has been a great one for their customers. How else are they still going? John Deere has been around for over 175 years and they’re still going strong.

Reference Page

Making a Fortune. “Deere”. (2015) Retrieved 1/17/17 from

http://www.makingafortune.biz/list-of-companies-d/deere.htm

Iowa State University Research Park. “John Deere Technology Innovation Center (Affiliate)” (2015) Retrieved 1/17/17 from

http://www.isupark.org/tenant-directory/john-deere-technology-innovati

Society of Women Engineers. “SWE Affiliate Inspires Girls With Engineering Event at John Deere India”. (2017) Retrieved 1/17/17 from

http://societyofwomenengineers.swe.org/international-member/511-slide/4879-swe-affiliate-inspires-girls-with-engineering-event-at-john-deere-india

Dhar, R.W.A. R. (2013). Marketing Management. Retrieved from https:// vitalsource.com/#/books/9781269309646/