Strengths
The main strength of the Geely Automotive Holdings, Ltd. is their focused research and development initiatives. They invest roughly “10% of their annual sales revenue (which is significant when compared to Toyota’s 5% investment)” in research and development and focus much of their company’s efforts on their Geely Automobile Research School and the Geely Engine Research School (Dess, Lumpkin, and Eisner, 2010). These schools allow them to make improvements pertaining to gas efficiency (a huge competitive advantage in the U.S. and European markets), the meeting of EPA standards, design innovation, as well as feature innovations. These are all important things to consider for any company in the automotive industry, but due to their founder’s (Shufu Li) visionary belief that “by mastering technology, Geely would be able to maintain its competitive advantage when facing foreign rivals,” Geely has taken the necessary actions to increase their total sales revenue as well as total profits from 1997 (the year they started their research and development for automobiles) to present day (Dess, Lumpkin, and Eisner, 2010). Geely has built upon this strength by showcasing their technological innovations in the heavily marketed and world renowned Detroit Auto Show. They also tied for first prize in the 2009 State Science and Technology Award for its innovation and received an award that has, for the past 5 years, has been received by only 12 out of the more than 5 million candidate companies (Min, 2005). Awards like this as well as Geely’s industry celebrated technology advantages (such as the Blow-Out Monitoring and Brake System, Electronic Equal Balance System, and overall safety improvements that allow Geely to meet the international F1 technical car racing safety standards) are part of what helps will help in generating more customer trust in the quality of their product and will in allow Geely obtain a larger scope of economy (Zhao, 2009).