Posted on 01/14/2006 12:09:21 PM PST by Iris7
Yeah, the whole Saturn and Oldsmobile business is amazing.
Just reduce Chevrolet and Pontiac to one model each with varying trim options, give Buick a good sedan and station wagon, bring back Oldsmobile as the full size heavy "Chrysler 300C" brand using the newest cool stuff and leave Cadillac alone. Easy as pie, and it worked for almost fifty years.
I first thought this said "GM is done, stick a fork in them."
"Jerome goes around and around and around." Isn't that the truth? Very rambling speech. He revisits the same points again and again and again. He needed to have an editor really pare this thing down to fighting weight. If he can't do that in a simple speech, could they do it to a large organization?
He's done a lot of great product stuff at Chrysler, but
At GM he can only echo his earlier Chry. efforts - but a day late/$ short
GM's too big, stodgy & structured to allow creativity/results that Lutz achieved @ Chry
Case in point; rebadging the Aussie (Monaru ?) as the GTO.
where's the exciting body work, Bob ?
GTO'S a--->LOSER ! which should've never been intro'd in current config.
"I hear that Ford is in much worse shape than GM. The scuttlebutt is that Ford is not honoring warranty obligations in a systematic way."
How do they do that? It's either in the warranty or it's not. I've never had any difficulty and I've got two new Fords in my garage.
Howdy, Richard.
The situation is very bad. Not "done", it can be fixed, but if things change like they have to then General Motors will be a very different place. (understatement!)
You've got that right.
GM is a complicated situation and I hate to comment not having studied it fully or even finished the article but I would say this and conservatives will see the truth in it.
A big company is like a government. And like all conservative solutions to big governments, one CANNOT go wrong by cutting out every unproductive use and user of cash.
Real and painful solutions are always avoided until they can be avoided no more (and that is the fork in the road). GM has union problems and it has management problems...both related to waste and non-productivity.
And then there is the product line-up. Not only does GM have to put each product under the white hot light of day, they have to realize that each product in their lineup reflects their fattiness of management and their company oriented style (AS OPPOSED TO A COMPANY THAT IS PURELY CUSTOMER ORIENTED).
GM needed to be scrubbed down to every nook and cranny. It needs to be reborn.
There is plenty good about GM but there is much that needs to be revolutionized. Like every business, it needs to be customer driven. If a product doesn't directly and powerfully address customer (and market) desire...off with its head.
An old mentor of mine (the best money maker I ever knew) used to say, business is simple...its professional businessmen that screw it up. When it stops being about the customer and starts being about the stockholder or even worse the management (or, God forbid, labor), the customer loses interest and the bottom line starts heading down.
I'm not saying that a company shouldn't be good to its employes (management and labor)...a good environment for them is good for productivity and good for the customer. But when the eye is no longer obsessively on the ball (the customer), the game is lost.
York is using a Detroit auto biz style folksy mentoring, but threatening, speech. He can do the direct "Steve Miller" of Delphi talk when he decides to do so.
The repeats are also very important. If you want people to remember something it must be repeated in three or more different ways.
Hence his moniker as "Neutron Jack."
Mustangs selling very well with happy buyers.
What you say is the truth. My position is that General Motors will be extremely different if it is in business in ten years. Without really serious change the only thing of value are IP, copyrights, and trademarks.
GM topped that by spending $2 billion to buy 20 percent of Fiat, then another $2 billion not to buy 20 percent of Fiat.
I've got a solution: A moritorium on the UAW for five years.
Tks for the ping. Was a great read.
I for one have written off GM until after it emerges from t for until afthe bankruptcy court. What emerges will not be the GM we know.
One thing I would recommend to G.M. would be naming Roger Pensky as head of G.M.
I would modify that suggestion as follows:
Chevrolet - Corvette and Camaro
Pontiac - GTO(redesigned body) and Soltice(with LS2 option)
Is there an executive summary ?
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