Jaguar Land Rover Strategic Analysis: VRIN, PESTLE & Value Chain

Company Profile

Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is a British multinational corporation that designs, develops, manufactures, promotes, and sells automobiles under the brand names of Jaguar and Land Rover, including the Range Rover brand. Jaguar Land Rover is the United Kingdom's largest automobile corporation, and it took its roots from two of the strongest automobile brands: Jaguar and Land Rover. Currently, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC is a renowned subsidiary of India's most successful automobile group — Tata Motors. It is headquartered in Whitley, Coventry, United Kingdom. Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover in 2008 from Ford Motor Company. The major subsidiaries of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC include Jaguar Land Rover Holdings Limited, Jaguar Land Rover Limited, Jaguar Land Rover India, and Chery Jaguar Land Rover. Jaguar Land Rover was the result of a union between Jaguar Cars and Land Rover, which Ford Motor Company established in 2002 (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014).

Out of the six major research and development, manufacturing, and assembly facilities of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, five exist in the United Kingdom while one is present in India. The most famous Jaguar cars include the Jaguar XJ (luxury car), Jaguar XF (executive car), Jaguar F-Type (sports car), and Jaguar XK (Grand Tourer), while the Land Rover brand sells the Land Rover Freelander, Land Rover Defender, Land Rover Discovery, Range Rover, Range Rover Sport, and Range Rover Evoque. Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC has currently employed more than 26,000 people from all over the globe, and it has created over 190,000 jobs in supply chain, dealership, and marketing fields in different regions (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014).

VRIN Model Analysis

No company can achieve a sustainable competitive advantage if its products do not give value to customers' money, are easily substitutable and imitable by competitors, or have no specific feature that is rare among other competitors (Kotler, 2009). This criterion defines how strong a brand is against its industry rivals. The analysis that helps the management of a company and its key stakeholders in assessing sustainability and competitive strength in the market is called the VRIN Model (Panda, 2008). It stands for value, rarity, inimitability, and non-substitutability. The following section presents a VRIN Model analysis for Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC.

i. Value

Jaguar Land Rover Automotive has created value for its brand by manufacturing products that are state-of-the-art and fully meet the expectations of its customers. Due to their luxurious design and exceptionally remarkable performance on the road, Jaguar Land Rover automobiles are now considered among the most competitive, reliable, and successful vehicles of the 21st century. In order to create value for its brand and the group as a whole, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC monitors its internal strengths and weaknesses and looks for attractive opportunities available in the market (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014).

By using its strengths along with available opportunities, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive neutralizes, or at least weakens, the external threats that are harmful to its business growth (Kotler, 2009). The value that Jaguar Land Rover Automotive provides to its customers and other key stakeholders also serves as a competitive advantage that becomes a threat for its rivals, which include General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Ford, BMW, Mercedes, and others (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014).

ii. Rarity

Jaguar Land Rover Automotive has a number of rare characteristics and advantages that are either possessed by only a few competitors or are highly unreachable for the entire industry. For example, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC was created as a union between two luxurious and top-quality brands — Jaguar Cars and Land Rover Automobiles — which allowed it to combine the technologies and strengths of these powerful brands (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014). Secondly, the huge investments required in every section of manufacturing and assembly processes cannot be borne by all automobile corporations. Jaguar Land Rover Automotive also benefits from Tata Technologies Limited, a successful entity within the Tata Motors group.

Although these strengths and advantages may not appear sustainable in the long run due to frequent mergers and acquisitions taking place in the global automotive industry, Jaguar Land Rover Automotive can still strive to strengthen its current market position by using its distinctive competencies, which are highly rare for competitors (Jaguar Land Rover Automotive PLC, 2014).

iii. Inimitability

Inimitability refers to the strengths and advantages of a company that its competitors cannot easily imitate or obtain (Harrison & John, 2014). Jaguar Land Rover Automotive does not possess any single feature that is highly inimitable for its competitors. Its competitive advantages — such as luxurious design, highly innovative gadgets, use of superior technology, and remarkable on-road performance — are rare to find combined in a single brand outside the top tier, but these can be imitated if smaller or lower-quality brands are able to arrange sufficient financial and operational resources.

iv. Non-Substitutability

There are numerous ways in which the products of Jaguar Land Rover Automotive can be substituted. Jaguar Land Rover is not only a premium-priced brand but also offers a number of cars with designs similar to those of other brands (for example, Land Rover versus Toyota Land Cruiser, and Jaguar executive cars versus Mercedes executive cars). Therefore, it cannot be said that Jaguar Land Rover Automotive can ensure a sustainable competitive advantage with respect to the non-substitutability of its products. Similarly, the gadgets and features available in Jaguar Land Rover cars are also present in luxurious cars offered by other manufacturers.

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