The Advantage of Technology

I. SWOT Analysis

1.1 Strengths

The first and most outstanding strength of SH is the advantage of technology. The "Idling stop system" has absolutely made a revolution when it can automatically stop and smoothly recover the engine together with the bike. That feature makes SH not only very friendly to environment, but also effectively saves fuel and protects the engine. According to Honda, SH can run 47.4 km per liter of gasoline for the 125cc and 43.8 km per liter for 150cc. It is definitely a remarkable number in comparison with any other type of automatic transmission motorbike in Vietnamese market. Furthermore, Honda also equiped the Anti-lock Braking System for their scooter. The braking system with 3 pushing pistons (just similar to the brake of racing motor) makes a huge difference for customers of Honda and gives inexperienced riders (on wet roads) maximum safe. However, the biggest surprise has come from price. Later last year, the Japanese giant has launched two new scooter models into the market - The SH 125i and SH 150i. To be produced in Vietnam, these two models have announced to go on sale with the price 80 million and 66 million respectively (only half the price as compared to the previous generation). Obviously, to own a "powerful" scooter as SH, which's quality is guaranteed by the long-lasting reputation of Honda, such the price is quite reasonable and attractive for customers.

1.2 Weaknesses

Despite the advantages of advance technologies, the design of SH contains some shortcomings. Although the cushion at center of saddle prevents the rider from tiredness, it also causes difficulties to carry the whole family with a kid. The trunk also does not have a good design, when it unexpectedly limited the ability to use the whole space of clients.

The long body has also changed from strength to weakness, when put in the situation of Vietnam's traffics. Although it makes comfortable feelings to ride in avenues, there will be a lot of troubles happen when SH's users want to turn into small alleys: large bends are not always possible in these cases, and sometimes the scooter can be stuck in. The special design for long-run is also a problem when SH's on the crowded streets of Vietnam.

SH still must have covered majority of luxary segmentation if Honda Vietnam was able to control their distributors to sell at the publicized price. However, as what was stated in the Brand Analysis part, the price is uncontrollable like any other products of Honda Vietnam. The system of vatgia.com, a big website for online kiosks in Vietnam has automatically draw a figure of SH Vietnam's market price based on the prices in its database, and showed that the price can differ because of the time and colors. That action has really made the customers annoyed, and at the moment, 'SH is being sold 4.5 million cheaper than the announced price' (VnMedia, 2013) because users change to other brands of other manufactures like Liberty i.e of Piaggio, which are being priced less sensibly.

1.3 Opportunities

Although seems to be in a hard time of sale, SH Vietnam has its opportunity to take back the market share. The petrol's price in Vietnam is increasing continuously and the high CPI makes people care more about saving money. With an impressive amount of fuel to save, SH will continue their growth stage soon if Honda Vietnam is able to control its price. Moreover, it seems like because of the high demand in defining social status, such luxurious motors as Honda SH or Piaggio Berveley are always attractive, so with a competitive selling price but high quality, Honda SH is supposed to satisfy almost all consumers and occupy an irreplacable position in the market.

1.4 Threats

Besides the great opportunities to get large market share of high class segmentation, SH is now facing a lot of serious threats that badly affect its development.

First of all, we must consider the traffic's situation in Vietnam, which is not suitable for the design of SH. Although Idling Stop is the most emphasized feature of the scooter, most of the time, Vietnamese users have to turn it off in order to suit in small crowded streets in cities and non-modernized roads in countryside of Vietnam. However, that does not mean SH can be highly suitable for Vietnam's roads just by turning off Idling Stop, while its long body still requires high-angle to get a turn in circumstance that there are bunches of small alleys in Vietnam.

The second threat for SH Vietnam is the price. In the previous part of weakness, we have talked about the fact that Honda Vietnam lacks of control to the real price of SH, but that was not just a problem. According to VnEconomy, these days, the market price of Honda scooter models suddenly fell down quite sharply and the furthest "lag" amount belongs to SH Honda (VnEconomy, 2013). Some agancies ssupposed that the reason comes from the difference between demand and supply. The supply is continuosly rising whereas the demand has stopped growing and that 's the major problem that pulled down the price of SH.

The last but not least threat is the appearances of some competitors. Since July 2012, more and more models