Business Paper: Tesla, Inc.
Write a 6 -10 page report about the selected business which should include but not limited to the following information
Part 1 – Business Profile – Founders, Mission and Vision
Part 2 – Business Structure
Part 3 – Business Human Resources
Part 4 – Business Marketing Plan and Product Development
Part 5 – Financial Analysis
Business Paper: Tesla, Inc.
Introduction
Tesla is one of the world’s leading automobile company with solid foundations based on sustainability and Eco-friendliness (“About Tesla | Tesla”, 2017). The reason I chose to write this paper about Tesla is because I firmly believe in their mission and corporate goals. I believe in their mission as they want to produce cars with zero carbon emission. And I believe in their corporate goals as they want to adopt to the greenest ways possible and still be profitable for its shareholders in financial terms. In the following sections of the paper, I would discuss different aspects of Tesla from different from different business perspectives.
Business Profile
Tesla is an electric auto designer, developer, manufacturer and seller which was came into being in 2003. The company has been famous in the auto industry primarily for the production of two of its electric vehicle models, i.e. Model S and Model X. The company has its own service centers across USA which provide maintenance services to its electric cars. Currently, Tesla own approximately 120 service centers across the country (“Tesla | Reuters.com”, 2017). Tesla also has some regional offices in different other countries but they are primarily for financial reporting purposes.
Founders: Elon Musk is generally known to be the founder of Tesla. Other founders of Tesla include JB Straubel, Martin Eberhard, Ian Wright and Marc Tarpenning. Elon Musk is the current Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of the company.
Mission and Vision: According to Tesla’s mission and vision statement, “accelerate the world’s transition to sustainable energy”. The mission statement is concise but has an in depth message to all of the industries around the world. This statement emphasize the sustainability efforts that Tesla is making and will keep making in bringing greener automobiles for their customers. I think that the founders of Tesla believe in the mission and vision statement and it would strategic decisions over the course of time and they will go on making environment friendly and energy efficient cars. The message from the vision and mission statement is clear, we as human species have to adapt to energy sources that are sustainable and can contribute to the prevention of the predicted disaster of global warming. The primary responsibility of the industrial owners is to accept this social responsibility and make organizational decision in accordance to it.
Tesla Organizational Structure
The organizational structure of Tesla is aimed at a continuous growth and innovation. This organizational structure facilitates the interaction between different components of the company to design, develop and manufacture products that can exceed customer expectations and are in line with company’s mission and vision. Tesla is an organization in which different functions form its organizational priorities. These functions define the responsibilities of different people who work for Tesla. Organization with different functions as the defining factors of their structure are said to be adopting to a functional organizational structure (Cummings & Worley, 2014). Therefore, we can say that Tesla has a functional organizational structure.
Tesla’s organizational structure has a Global hierarchy which plays an important role in the management of different functional units (Meyer, 2016). Global hierarchy is the most significant feature in Tesla as it enables the development of global functional teams who can monitor national and international activities of the firm. Some of the heads of different titles used by Tesla include Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, Chief Financial Officer, Chief Technology Officer, Many Vice Presidents for different functional units and so on.
The fact that Tesla is a high tech organization advocates the decision making to be centralized and made by experts of the high level. They do consider innovative ideas from all of the staff members via unit managers. Different operations are controlled by the head of the different functional units and they are the one who form the decision making team in Tesla. Tesla has only a few regional divisions which are located in USA, China, Norway and only a few in other countries. These divisions are primarily focused on financial reporting in these countries (Meyer, 2016).
Human Resource Management at Tesla
Tesla is an organization that focuses on the introduction of innovative technologies to the consumer market, therefore, it has to engage its human resource in such a way that it promote innovation (Liu, Kang, Wu, Chen, & Hon, 2014). Tesla focuses on engagement strategies in its organizational activities. Each employ is encouraged to participate in different organizational activities and contribute to it with more than just his/her usual duties. Inside Tesla, HR teams pay frequent visits to the manufacturing plants and conduct pre-shift meetings to know about the expectations of the employees from the organization and their view point on how working environment can be made even better for them. Tesla communicates with its employees via different channels including conducting surveys like Tesla360, which keep the respondent anonymous so that they can be honest about their feedback about the organization. Due to these and other innovative techniques that Tesla utilizes to reach out to its human resource and include them in the innovative technical and non-technical activities of the company, Forbes included Tesla to their “Most Innovative Companies of 2015” list Forbes. (2015).
Marketing Plan
For any business that wants to launch a product to the consumer market, there has to be a marketing plan with clear goals and how to achieve them (Cohen, 2005). The same is true for Tesla. They also have to have a good marketing plan to present their product to the consumer market efficiently. My personal opinion is that for Tesla, marketing their product should not be a big challenge as the nature of their product is what is in line with the environmental demands of the day. They aim to contribute positively to the cause of decreasing carbon emission which is a noble cause if we forget for a minute the profitability that is expected from this noble cause.
Tesla has an innovative strategic marketing plan (Mangram, 2012). According to this plan, Tesla divides the marketing plan into three phases.
Phase 1: This phase lasts for 6 months. Tesla creates different banners and promotes their product on their website. These banners are advertised in automotive magazines in the target markets. Social media is utilized to communicate with potential consumers and answer their questions related to the new products. Side wise, the production of the electric cars is initiated.
Phase 2: This phase lasts for six months as well. An announcement of the features of the car is made to the public and they are encouraged to place orders with Tesla. Towards the end of this phase, Tesla starts to offer test drives.
Phase 3: Start the delivery of the electric cars and develop communication strategies with the owners in accordance to their needs and inquiries about the product they possess or want to own. Tesla website is kept updated with important information that is explored after the car has come on to the road. Customer’s feedback is an important part of this published information on the website.
Product Development
Tesla product development strategies are risky as they rely on new and innovative product that may or may not be a success. Continuous exploration of innovative, sustainable and plausible solutions is the key to its success. Tesla exploits technology from many angles. Tesla has designed different simulators in which they test their cars in situations near to real life. They focus on the design of their cars so that they have less resistance from air and can move forward with less energy requirements. They have added automation to their recent cars which provided their customers a great experience. Tesla is always in a hunt for achieving excellence with their car batteries as they act as the power house of the electric cars. Before an electric can be brought to the consumer market, rigorous tests are applied to it so that there is less chance of something going wrong and customers feel satisfied with their purchase.
Financial Analysis of Tesla
In the last quarter of the fiscal year 2016, Tesla recorded an increase in its gross profit margin (“TheStreet”, 2017). For the same quarter, Tesla has recorded an increase in its sales and the net income of the company is on rise compared to the same quarter in 2015. The net worth of Tesla has increased by 321.02% which is quite significant. Currently, Tesla has a stable financial position. It has gained the competence of investors and its stock price is on its highest position today i.e. March 1, 2017 when its stock history was analyzed over the last one year according to NASDAQ (Tesla, Inc. Common Stock – NASDAQ, 2017).
Conclusion
In conclusion, I would like to express my deepest respect for the kind of organization Tesla is. Tesla has proved that it’s not just profit maximization but also our social responsibilities that should be a guide in the design, development and manufacturing of different consumer products and services. Tesla is one of the most innovative organization of the world in my opinion and this innovation would guide it towards more success with an active engagement of its top management and all other human resources.
References
About Tesla. (2017). Tesla.com. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from https://www.tesla.com/about
Cohen, W. A. (2005). The marketing plan. John Wiley & Sons.
Cummings, T. G., & Worley, C. G. (2014). Organization development and change. Cengage learning.
Forbes. (2015). Forbes.com. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbespr/2015/08/19/forbes-announces-fifth-annual-list-of-the-worlds-most-innovative-companies/#6c1b1a9e6a55
Liu, Y. E., Kang, Y., Wu, H., Chen, C., & Hon, E. (2014). Tesla Motors Inc. Case Synopsis. Burnaby BC: Simon Fraser University. Retrieved, 10(18), 2014
Mangram, M. E. (2012). The globalization of Tesla Motors: a strategic marketing plan analysis. Journal of Strategic Marketing, 20(4), 289-312.
Meyer, P. (2016). Tesla Motors, Inc.’s Organizational Structure, Characteristics (An Analysis) – Panmore Institute. Panmore Institute. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from http://panmore.com/tesla-motors-inc-organizational-structure-characteristics-analysis
Tesla, Inc. Common Stock – NASDAQ. (2017). Nasdaq.com. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from http://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/tsla/historical
Tesla | Reuters.com. (2017). Reuters. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=TSLA.O
TheStreet. (2017). TheStreet. Retrieved 1 March 2017, from https://www.thestreet.com/r/ratings/reports/analysis/TSLA.html
