Yamaha Motor Europe NV (YME) is the European operation of the Yamaha Motor Corporation. YME markets and sells Yamaha motorcycles, as well as a variety of land vehicles and watercraft, in 24 European countries.
To gauge its potential customers' reactions to its latest motorbike designs, YME's new product development team conducts focus groups across Europe. While informative, however, the process was costly and time-consuming.
In 2001, the company developed the Yamaha Design Café, an online portal that delivered interesting stories on Yamaha Motor's latest sports bikes and was geared toward YME's core audience – sports bike enthusiasts. Accompanying the stories are links to surveys, which provide a cost-effective means of collecting consumer data. YME used the SPSS Inc. survey research tool IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web* to develop and field the Design Café surveys.
It's extremely important to stay in touch with how our customers feel. Thanks to IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web, we never feel out of the loop, which gives us confidence that we’re always delivering a product that truly meets their expectations.
Hennes Fischer
Product Planning Consultant
Yamaha Motor Europe NV
Based in Schiphol Rijk, Amsterdam, YME is the European headquarters of Yamaha Motor Corporation. YME markets and sells Yamaha motorcycles, ATVs, snowmobiles, golf carts, and a wide range of other land vehicles and watercraft. It has manufacturing facilities in France, Spain, Italy, and Turkey, and services customers in European countries including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as developing markets in Eastern Europe.
To make sure its latest motorbike designs were on target, YME's new product development team conducted focus groups with potential customers across Europe. While highly informative, these trips were costly and time consuming. The alternative – interviewing three to four thousand respondents by telephone – proved too expensive to be feasible.
In 2001, YME turned to the Internet for a more economical and efficient means of collecting comparable consumer insight. The result was the Yamaha Design Café (www.yamaha-motor-europe.com/designcafe). The site delivers interesting stories about Yamaha Motors' latest sports bikes, based on interviews with Yamaha's engineers, product planners, and designers.
Accompanying the stories are links directing readers to surveys. In these, YME asks technical questions that only a well-informed bike rider could answer. This approach ensures that YME is truly hearing from its target audience – genuine motorbike enthusiasts. Hennes Fischer, YME's product planning consultant, used IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web from SPSS Inc., a product within the company's Data Collection* survey research technology platform, to develop and field the Design Café surveys. Familiarity with SPSS Inc. products was just one reason Fischer chose the application.
" IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web was the only software that gave me the flexibility to design a questionnaire offline; other products forced you to compose questionnaires on the server," says Fischer. "Likewise, SPSS Inc.’s Translation Utility* [another component of the Data Collection suite] offered the best translation abilities and was the easiest to use – a necessity, since the majority of our research is multilingual. Finally, the people at SPSS Inc. were true professionals. They listened to my needs and met all requests."
YME saved time and reduced costs because the new product development team could conduct focus groups with more specific information gathered by IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web beforehand; Web results also make some travel unnecessary. Beyond product planning, YME uses it to conduct internal research, asking dealers questions on a range of issues from logistics to product evaluation. These results are then shared with logistics personnel, who can help dealers address bike delivery times and other issues.
The Yamaha Design Café has already paid dividends as a new product evaluation tool. For example, when the Yamaha Motor Corporation created an electric two-wheeler for the Japanese market, YME wanted to determine the product's potential in Europe – where conventional motorcycle customer don't tend to buy electric scooters.
In only two weeks, the survey – which featured photographs of the bike – generated 2,000 responses from scooter lovers in France, Germany, and Italy. The feedback helped YME's new product development team learn how Europeans would use the scooter, and how much they were willing to pay for it. After some technical modifications, YME decided to import the bike from Japan and introduce it in limited quantities in France, Germany, and Italy.
Fischer uses IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web for fast and focused research that gives the new product development team timely data to act upon. He can also combine the results of his research with qualitative and quantitative data generated by third-party research firms to identify new opportunities in product evolution.
By leveraging the domain expertise of his staff and the sophistication of traditional research agencies, Fischer now has access to richer data, and is able to cultivate and validate development recommendations faster. For example, YME modified present motorcycle models in accordance with the survey replies that had been gathered through the Design Café – which has helped keep the vehicles competitive. "It's extremely important to stay in touch with how our customers feel," says Fischer. "Thanks to IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web, we never feel out of the loop, which gives us confidence that we’re always delivering a product that truly meets their expectations."
Interested in SPSS Inc. analytics for customer feedback? Download the Yamaha Motor Europe NV PDF here.
IBM SPSS Data Collection Interviewer Web*, formerly called mrInterview™; Data Collection, formerly called Dimensions™; and Translation Utility, formerly mrTranslate™, are all part of SPSS Inc.’s Predictive Analytics Software portfolio.
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