The project assigned by German Motor was that of performing a research to find out the possibility of launching Mercedes-Benz's new product that is called MB-100 and customer reaction toward MB-100. In this report, we have recommended that if German Motors decided to launch MB-100, they should consider decreasing the price down to Rp.50 -60 million, make the interior more exclusive for the private users' car, and German Motors also have to provide for the financing term such as credit payment.

With the growth of Indonesia economy at over 5% per year, the purchasing power of Indonesian people increases. Mercedes-Benz views this growth as an opportunity to expand by increasing both their capacity and investment.

There are 6 categories in the automotive industry, one for sedan and five for commercial vehicles. The current market condition has experienced a declining for categories III and IV while an increasing for categories I and II, and stable market for category V.



Mercedes-Benz participates in categories II, III, and V. As these categories III to V are not volume markets, the company seeks another opportunity to another category I and II to realize economic of scale by introducing products for mass market.



Usually the product weight for category I are in the range of 1,5 -2,5 tons and 6.5 -9 tons for category II. There is a gap between these categories (+/- 3-6 tons) that attracted Mercedes-Benz to enter this new-targeted category. The issues that they are facing now are future product development and the attractiveness of this new-targeted category. To capture this opportunity, Mercedes-Benz intends to launch a new product called MB-l00 for the Indonesian market.



In summary, our recommendation is based upon the Indonesian economic and automotive industry growth, customers' needs and their purchasing power, and available competitors' products, which have been thoroughly analyzed in order to anticipate the future of MB-100.





Research location: PT German Motor

Supervisor: Hadi Satyagraha, MBA, PhD.

Accepted on December 1995