Hyundai assurance program case study

At the same time, to help overcome its reputation for poor quality, the company announced a 10-year, 100,000-mile warranty. The Hyundai program was far more comforting than the industry’s standard three-year, 30,000-mile warranty, and essentially guaranteed the car for its entire expected working life.

“There’s a sense that what Hyundai is doing on many fronts is working in terms of actually gaining some advantage during the crisis,” says Wharton management professor John Paul MacDuffie, who specializes in the automotive industry and is co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program.

Wharton management professor Lawrence G. Hrebiniak says Hyundai’s success is the result of a cohesive strategy clearly designed to differentiate the firm from its competitors, combined with a willingness to make substantial investments to carry out the plan.

In the first three months of this year, the company’s global market share rose to 4.7%, compared to 4% a year earlier. MacDuffie says Hyundai first made a name for itself in the United States in the late 1980s when it exported the low-cost Excel to the American market.