A Study on Nissan’s Ambiguous Position in Generic Business Strategy

The Nissan has experienced a deep slump since 2016. This study managed the reason for a deep slump of Nissan from an ambiguous position aspect in generic business strategy, the cost leadership and differentiation. To clarify its position in vehicle market, the management result indexes of Nissan as well as those of three rival makers, Toyota, Honda & Hyundai were analyzed. As a result, major findings are to be sum up as follows. Firstly, at the global vehicle sales volume trend, the reduction of economies of scale for Nissan is relatively more serious than those of rival makers. Secondly, Nissan’s cost control capability gradually weakens while rarely initiating any new change of vehicle industry. Thirdly, from the differentiation strategy, Nissan’s product lineup is not so competitive as those of other rivals in the number of models as well as in the diversity of models. Fourthly, if looking into the brand value through the average unit price trend of vehicles since 2016, Nissan has been not so good at enhancing the its brands’ value as much as rival makers. Meanwhile, at the corporate strategy, the stop of merger discussion between Honda and Nissan resulted from the gap of preferred merger method as well as the uncertain synergy post-merger integration.