Case Study: - Strategies & Insights from a Niche European Truck-Maker - Scania AB - Combating & Managing the Industry & Global Economic Slowdown Effectively

The recent global economic slowdown had been the worst ever crisis to have hit the global economy since the Great Depression of 1930’s. Almost all the industries & markets, especially in the western hemisphere, were significantly affected & impacted by the downturn.

The European market for trucks was no exception to the power of the crisis which had global dimension, impact & ramifications The Western European market for trucks almost halved in terms of demand in the year 2009 plummeting to 168,000 vehicles in 2009 as against 330,000 vehicles in 2008. The North American market too went through the carnage as the demand for class-8 truck sales in North America declined to 1991 levels.

Almost all truck-makers bore the brunt of the uncalled for crisis & deployed an array of coping strategies to best adapt to the rapidly altered market & industry dynamics as well as environment and thus went through a major transformation in terms of structure, alignment and stance while navigating through the unprecedented times.

This case study focuses on the niche European truck-maker; Scania AB, based out of Sweden, and provides insights into how it combated & managed to navigate effectively through the depths of the crisis by leveraging inherent structural strengths while simultaneously deploying & utilizing an array of strategies to ensure that Scania maintained its profitability track-record, unbroken for last 5 decades, on a year-on- year basis once again in 2009.