Case Study : Tesla Motors

1. Analyze Tesla's external environment (identify both favorable and unfavorable factors).

2. Analyze Tesla's internal environment.

a. What resources and capabilities appear to be unique to Tesla?

b. What is Tesla's core competence (if any)?

3. Evaluate Tesla's business-level strategy:

a. Who are Tesla's target customers?

b. How does Tesla satisfy their needs?

c. What type of business strategy is this?

4. Identify the major innovations that Tesla has introduced to the market.

a. For each of them, determine if they were incremental or radical.

b. Overall, do you consider Tesla a "first mover or a "follower ? Explain.

5. Has Tesla diversified and/or vertically integrated (forward or backward)? Explain and evaluate the benefits and drawbacks of these diversification/vertical integrations.

6. Elon Musk is debating between (a) focusing on the low-end market and trying to mass-produce more and more "affordable" models OR (b) focusing on the upper-end of the market with new models of luxury sports cars. Evaluate the pros and cons of each option. Which one would you recommend and why?

7. Tesla's management came up with the idea to diversify.