Yamaha Says Cost Containment Paramount Goal

[MCRIDER007]

There is an interesting article in Motorcycle Daily about Yamaha's strategy for success in the current world business environment.

https://www.motorcycledaily.com/2013/01/yamahas-president-speaks-about-cost-containment-as-paramount-goal/

There are probably a lot of ways one could look at Yamaha's strategy but the marketing of that strategy doesn't seem to be very good, it appears that lower production costs are going to have higher priority than either improvements or innovation....although I think when Yamaha finds a way to lower production costs they are going to be announcing the change as an improvement whether it is or not. A possible example would be the redesigned forks on the 2013 FJR. It should be noted that the smaller European motorcycle companies (Aprilla, BMW, Ducati, KTM, Triumph) are going the opposite direction with many new models and lots of innovation. Those companies costs and prices continue to go up but they all had record sales in 2012.

I sure hope that Yamaha's quality control does not take a hit because of their new emphasis on cost containment.

 

[SeattleTy]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing

 

[brady]

That was a really interesting article. Makes me wonder what the upcoming years hold?? I'm Yamaha going to start cheeping out? Is quality going to suffer? I will be interesting to watch.

 

[ionbeam]

Cutting quality has never been a winning business initiative. Yamaha can't balance the books by shorting quality so drop that fear. What they can do is modify how they meet the quality goals. I wouldn't worry about the quality of Yamaha's products, cutting quality = cutting your throat. Plus, cutting quality is just not Japanese.

What I see in the article is the current paradigm of managing costs at the corporate level world wide. I read that Yamaha will be adjusting product offerings to focus on solid sales classes. It appears that global sales are strong for middle displacement, middle cost motorcycles. Look for polishing and options for current middle weights and new offerings in lower cost products. From the outside, what we don't see is the cost cutting by reducing design cycle time and development cost savings. Bringing a new product to market is very expensive and time consuming making it the #1 target when a corporation starts cost cutting.

So what does this mean to the FJR? My guess is that there may be more changes to save cost like what was done to the front forks. Any new features, functions or upgrades will have to be done with little or no base cost increase, but increase the overall value making the FJR more desirable and increase sales. Since Yamaha is focusing on the strong sales bracket I don't see any revolutionary changes in the FJR until there is more available money in the world wide market. I wonder what offering color choices would do to wake up sales in North America?

 

[RedPorscheKilla]

Very interesting article, yet being employed with the corporate world brings just a well known memory up.

There you have a corporate actuary, and there you have the never ending hunger (well, greed) of the corporate execs to siphon the profits to accommodate bonuses and justify unneeded overhead. So the hilarious excel spreadsheet, the actuary creates, gets put to use to show how much we can contain the profit margin in the 500+ % range so we can keep making more and more mistakes in lame decisions. so a few years down the road, we can turn again around and hail ourselves, after yet another drastic change, because we saved the day....

Sorry for being sarcastic, but when I read this managerial gibberish, filled with empty buzz words, the speaker hardly knows the meaning of, makes me want to go ballistic. Not just Honda tried it, GM did it, or Volkswagen did it too. One can understand that one spare-part in one bike can be reused in another, so I keep my development and production cost down and I theoretically can project a win win. From my point of view it's just another insult to me the customer.

I once owned a Audi A8 (yep basic rule #1, I never own a car twice!!), was happy to own a prime car of the top of the line, now by accident I was given on a biz trip a rental from Seat (belongs to Volkswagen and VW owns Audi!!....) and I found myself handling the very emergency brake handle than in my 6 times more expensive Audi.... When I changed to Mercedes and had me a CL600, the very same occurred. The dealer I bought this car from had a Lamborghini and so I was invited to take it for a spin...I sat in, left the car after a minute fuming. Dealer asked me WTF is wrong with this fine Lamborghini Gallardo? I told him, listen I've got me already a car which cost the price of a house, but I'm not stupid enough to pay a premium for a Lamborghini which in reality is a Audi in disguise (Audi owns Lamborghini, so you know)...Long story short, 3/4 of the dash board of this Lamborghini was actually made out of Audi parts!!!!

So why in the world do I want to sponsor this matter of cost containment!! Shortening development and life-cycles on a product is just a fog candle to cover up the greed of a corporation, which actually is just in one way innovative, trying to find a way to over charge me as a customer, so they can remain lazy earning for nothing a profit and delivering a miniscule quality!! Hence the mass recalls from Toyota, Ford and all there are out there, Yamaha included......

Sorry for the ranting, but had to vent......

V

RPK

 

[C&C]

The hot plan is to raise quality and go after conquest sales (from other manufacturers); that's a lasting strategy.

 

[Fontanaman]

I will enjoy the FJRs I have now. The future maybe grim.

The new Triumph Trophy SE provides good competition for the FJR. Hell I got a Trophy wife, why not a Trophy motorcycle.

 

[Bounce]

It should be noted that the smaller European motorcycle companies (Aprilla, BMW, Ducati, KTM, Triumph) are going the opposite direction with many new models and lots of innovation. Those companies costs and prices continue to go up but they all had record sales in 2012.

Former Triumph also did that (many lines, etc.) and is now the new Triumph. Sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't. When the overall market is in recession along with the world economy and the future of all US markets, sometimes it best to consolidate your position and strengthen your core.

I missed it. What's the deal with the '13 forks?

 

[MCRIDER007]

I missed it. What's the deal with the '13 forks?

The left fork does not have any damping adjustments....Yamaha says that reduces weight and is an improvement. I don't think anyone believes you can have the same range of damping adjustments when you can only adjust one fork but it probably does not make that much difference on the OEM springs and damping. However, the suspension gurus are going to have to redesign the upgrades for the left fork (the right fork appears to be the same as the GEN2 models) and those of us that already have fork upgrades are not going to be able to simply transfer our springs and cartridges to the 2013 model.