A Cluster Analysis of Marketing Strategies Implementation Barriers in the Car Manufacturing Industry (Case study: Iran Khodro Company)

Car manufacturing industry is considered one of the major national industries, which due to its increasing product, particularly in recent years, has played a crucial role in the economy of the country, and still continues to do so. With the development of manufacturing capacity in the car industry, a relative competition is being witnessed among the manufacturers, which calls for the consideration of the issue of marketing strategy formulation and implementation. Due to the complexity and multi-dimensionality of marketing strategy implementation, little has been done in this field. This paper employs hierarchical cluster analysis for exploration of marketing strategy implementation barriers based on the expert opinions gathered through a questionnaire survey. Results of this study reveal the existence of two main clusters and other sub-clusters. It is concluded that weak leadership, is by far, the most important implementation barrier single-cluster. The other cluster with four distinct barriers includes: 1- lack of human resources, 2- lack of monetary resources, -3 lack of time resources, -4 and lack of access to the required information for implementing marketing strategies.