dispatches from the new world of work

One More Time ...

Several of you have told me that GM is "so yesterday" that I should stop trashing them—as in ... Who cares?

Well they're still damn big, and still employ a lot of us. So I pose this question: Who's more incompetent, FEMA's chief or GM's? As I see it ... Whatta contest!

As I (clearly) recall, GM boss Rick ("I know things you don't") Wagoner said ... I KNOW THINGS YOU DON'T. Namely that buyers didn't give a shit about gas prices ... and would keep on buyin' his high-margin SUVs.

Of course RW couldn't have predicted New Orleans, but it seems as though the Japanese did!

Last week GM announced August car sales were down a whopping 13% (industry sales were up 3.8%) ... even as they continued their "free cars" employee discount. Ford's biggest SUV sales plunged ... 40%! And, oh yeah, Japanese car market share hit a new record, 39%. (Nissan ... +15%. Toyota ... +14%. Honda ... +23%.) So what, exactly, is it/was it that Wagoner knew that you and I didn't?

Tom Peters posted this on 09/06/05.

Comments

Perhaps RW did predict New Orleans, and the number of cars that would be lost to Katrina?

Posted by Nick Davis at September 6, 2005 8:49 AM

Ahhh Tom...

Long before I was a tpc'er, I went from United Parcel Service to General Motors. GASP!!! Is it possible that two organizations growing up in the same business world could be so different? I grew up working with many of the folks now running the show and I am more saddened than mortified. Good folks, but clueless. Design matters more these days than cost per piece. They have freakin ugly cars designed by old folks like me. Jerry Hirschberg escaped Buick and went on to found Nissan Design Institute...he got it. The late Skip Lefauve had it when he was a plant manager in Grand Rapids and kept it as CEO of Saturn. After Skip, the GM systems took hold and changed Saturn into Oldsmobile Redux. Roy Roberts worked his way up from the steel mills of Muskegon to head GMC/Cadillac...he got it, so he's gone too of course. I am afraid that the execs know they make their money off of GMAC, and feel building cars is just a commodity for financing. I am beginning to believe the only way for GM to prosper is to die and get reborn in some different fashion. This is an American business tragedy...As Dr. Deming told a few hundred GM execs sitting in the conference room one day, "change is not an imperative. neither is survival." Aargh...

Posted by Mike Neiss at September 6, 2005 10:07 AM

I couldn't agree more, Mike N. I grew up in Big Three Country (still live there), but now work for a supplier to the Japanese Big 3. I don't think the steel mills of Muskegon are still in operation. I don't know about the Grand Rapids plant, but all the Lansing plants are closed except the new one where they assemble the Escalade, and with today's fuel prices how long can that last? Henry Ford's Rouge is now one third tourist attraction, one third truck assembly, and one third Russian-owned steel. So, there has been plenty of change going on, just not in the right places or of the right kind!

Posted by Mike at September 6, 2005 10:24 AM

I've never understood the BIG quandry about the auto industry (I have my consumer hat on). I had a Ford Windstar - died at 110,000 MILES. I've had two Chevy Cavalier's - DOA at 122,000 and 138,000. I've had two Chrysler LeBarons - both died at 60,000(!!!). I now have a Honda that's running strong at 180,000. DOES ANYBODY IN DETROIT GET IT YET???????

Posted by Jim Cooper at September 6, 2005 11:15 PM

You guys ought to look at the UK picture and learn some lessons, pdq. We used to have a thriving automobile industry. Now, it's pretty much dead. GM have virtually pulled out and Ford basically make engines here. Rover (having eaten up BMW's cash and bought themselves ought for about Â£10) recently went bust through making ugly, boring, inefficient cars with no value or performance benefits that would encourage anybody to buy one. Decent brands like Jaguar have been purchased but find themselves struggling within their new parents. We do have some success stories though: they're Japanese, Nissan and Honda.

Posted by Mark JF at September 7, 2005 7:35 AM

I think the reason Rover went bust had more to do with management incompetence than car design. I thought the Rover 75 was an attractive and well-designed car, no matter what Jeremy Clarkson says.

While the company was still afloat, its management sold for a pittance (Â£67 million) the intellectual property rights to sell Rover cars in China to a Chinese company, SAIC. Rover's management agreed to it in what has got to be one of the dumbest deals in automotive history. Now another Chinese firm, Nanjing Automobile, have bought the rest of Rover "for an undisclosed sum." I'm betting a fraction of the Â£1bn that had been expected. I think the cars and the brand have potential, and not just in China. brand viagra buy

A couple of documentaries have revealed Rover's management incompetence in painful detail focusing not just on the China angle but on the moves they made leading up to their involvement with the Chinese, who found it easy to take advantage of them.

Posted by Noel Guinane at September 10, 2005 7:17 AM