dispatches from the new world of work

Move Over, Toyota ...

Headline in the Financial Times that I found hanging on my London hotel room door this morning:

"Birmingham Hails an Unlikely Savior: MG Rover [Britain's last mass car producer], struggling to survive, is being offered a lifeline by a Chinese company [Shanghai Auto] that desires the carmaker's design assets and the right to build Rover brand cars."

The Chinese are ... movin' out! Loaded with a trillion bucks or so of accumulated loose change (while we stagger under the weight of an equally enormous deficit), they are breaking their isolated geographic bonds, ripping opening their wallets, and skipping steps in the process of completing the competitiveness puzzle by accumulating intellectual capita and branding skill and muscle.

Hint: This is not a small story!

Tom Peters posted this on 11/24/04.

Comments

I agree that the Chinese are moving out, but I suspect many of the good Chinese companies will do so more intelligently than Shanghai Auto.

Do you really think buying a controlling stake in a long-failing, sub-scale, outmoded Midlands car manufacturer presents great opportunities?

Posted by Lance Knobel at November 24, 2004 10:40 AM

"managed asset reflation"! I suspect Rover's not all bad. The brand still has value and Rover retains engineering excellence. It lacks volume and capital and the Chinese can supply that in abundance.

I saw Tom in London on Tuesday and he referred to his time in the UK in the late 70s and our preoccupation at that time with the survival of Leyland.

I suspect at the time he didn't anticipate that those comments and his views on China and India would converge in the next day's headlines.

Nice one Tom.

Posted by Martin Smith at November 25, 2004 5:19 AM

I have been involved in the automotive industry for about 15 years in various capacities. In 1994, you almost never heard anyone mention China, and the Japanese automotive companies were openly pessimistic about the nation's prospects.

Now, it is impossible to attend an industry-wide event where China isn't a main topic. I think it will be a while before Chinese OEMs gain much market share, but the country is already a strong manufacturing base for tooling and components.

Posted by Edward Trimnell at November 27, 2004 8:04 PM