How can companies increase their market share?

Abstract: This master´s thesis is the work of Charlotte Wallin at Blekinge Institute of Technology the summer and autumn 2007. The aim of this master thesis is to show how important it is to make deep market investigations of the present situation before expensive market activities are decided and entered into the market in question. Many industrial market plans are released without a complete knowledge and is not positive to the growth of market shares. To increase market shares, the best approach is to combine a detailed knowledge of the market with established market analysis theories like SWOT, Porter and Kotler. MAHA Maschinenbau Haldenwang GmbH & Co. KG (MAHA) is the company which this master´s thesis has been executed placed in 150 km southwest of Munich Germany. MAHA is a global company that designs, produces and sell vehicle repair and testing equipment to vehicle repair facilities stations, government and private testing organizations as well as the automotive industry. MAHA has businesses in over 130 countries and has a good position in the market due the high quality of its products. However, MAHA have not in the past put resources in investing the markets prior to heavily market investments but have realized its necessity to be able to increase their market shares in markets with high competition. The investigation includes three different markets: Japan, Russia, and Italy. The markets have in common a complicated bureaucracy and complicated countries for foreign companies to entry. The differences between the countries are the geographical location, culture, selling actions, service demand and marketing activities plus the mature of the technical level. By using information sources like printed literature, sources available on the Internet and branch organizations, interviews and questionnaires with qualities and quantities methods for both employees, distributors, competition and end-customers a huge volume of collected data has been summarized and analysed by using different marketing models ending up in conclusions and suggestions for MAHA to make the right marketing decisions aiming for a larger share of the market. The result of this master’s thesis research has shows that the three markets should be treated different because of that the markets are in different levels of their development. The markets demand different products and is needed to be treated different. The Japanese market is much closed for foreign companies, need to be approached in the Japanese language, demand high quality and quick service plus has the highest technical level. The Russian market is a market, which is increasing at the moment. The Russian market involves a lot of potential and MAHA has a good market share in the market. The Italian market is the market, which involves most competitors. In the Italian market the main European competitors are active. For all three markets Japan, Russia and Italy, the conclusions for MAHA vary. In Japan the most important factors is to find a partner or find an extreme high technical niche product, which doesn’t have any correspondence in the existing Japanese market. In Russia should MAHA´s organization expand and increase, but there is no need for large changes. In Italy MAHA should stake on one product group and specialize on it.