Posted on 09/09/2006 1:55:01 PM PDT by Zakeet
If only turning around a car company were as easy as turning around a car - or an airline manufacturer.
The new chief executive of the Ford Motor Co., in his most recent role, successfully guided aerospace giant Boeing through a wrenching downturn as the 9/11 terrorist attacks reduced demand for air travel.
At Boeing, Alan Mulally gained experience dealing with union labor, a global supply chain, and building products that contain everything from sheet metal to complex electronics.
Those are skills that Ford desperately needs. The No. 2 US automaker confronts declining market share, mounting losses, and a major shift in consumer preferences toward fuel-efficient cars.
But some of Ford's biggest challenges are ones that Mr. Mulally never faced at Boeing.
Where commercial aviation is dominated by two companies, the auto industry has become a tangle of global rivals - with Chinese automakers now scrambling to become exporters alongside those from Japan, Germany, and South Korea.
Where Boeing and Airbus sell their planes to dozens of airlines, success in the auto industry depends on catering to millions of consumers.
"Boeing is not that much like General Motors" or Ford, says Peter Morici, a University of Maryland economist. Carmakers "produce a complex consumer good that has to be mass-marketed and has substantial branding issues."
The fierce competition puts pressure on Mulally, even though he's an outsider, to move quickly.
The challenge is twofold, analysts say: to cut costs and to rev up the pace of new products that can provide future revenues.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
GM is in a better position to survive because they are "restructuring at a faster pace."
Ford needs to refresh its auto models every few years, and because they haven't done this, they are suffering.
Experts wonder if the Ford family, who control 40 percent of the voting shares of Ford Motor, will give Mulally enough of a free reign to do what needs to be done.
GM is in a better position to survive because they are "restructuring at a faster pace."
Right. Right now, GM is the strongest of the "Big Three."
I read the other day tha Ford Motor Company is giving a "Presidential" vehicle to ex-POTUS Bill Clinton sometime in September. I can assure you, if this happens, I will never buy a Ford vechicle until I die. This low life Democrat traitor, 911 enabler, the murderer of American innocents by the thousands should be burning in hell, not getting a new, free-of-charge car. I now have the lowest opinon of Ford Motor Company and the entire Ford family, unions included. i hope and pray the company goes bankrupt.
Read an interesting article on MSN about how "green" CEOs almost invariably have a rotten track record. They mentioned Ford, GE, and BP. Ford's stock has lost 2/3rds of it's value since the gay greenies took over. They mentioned that BP, which runs all those screwball ads with morons asking questions like "Why isn't energy free and non-polluting?", despite all the eco-friendliness claimed by the CEO (and supposedly spending a lot of corporate money on whatever's fashionable among the environmentalists) has caused a lot of environmental damage by not doing BASIC MAINTENANCE on their pipelines and gulf oil rigs.
The media always write about American car companies' styling and their labor costs.
This is my deal: I don't care about styling and labor costs as much as getting where I'm going. I drove Fords for 31 years. Mostly bought with about 3 miles on the odometer and driven over 100,000. The last Ford I bought in 1994 had the same stupid problems that the first one I bought in 1972 had. Until the domestics get their 3-year reliability up - not their "initial quality" - people like me will never buy them. I for one will never go back. My Toyota experience has been ridiculous - my Tundra is as reliable as an anvil.
Bill Ford has probably never been stranded on the side of a remote country road. For his information - like he will ever see this - his products have embarrassed me for the last time.
With all due respect for Freeper Ford fans, I'd never buy a Ford because of the Ford Foundation which supports every leftist cause you can think of and some you've never even heard of....
I happen to be one of the hundreds of thousands that are boycotting Ford because of their support for the homosexual agenda. Nothing is said of that in the article. Since the boycott began (starting this spring), Ford's sales have declined about 5% to 7% a month. Now they are discussing taking their stock sales out of the public market. Too bad. Hope they utterly fail.
Of course, if their new COO is willing to stop supporting the gay agenda...
Know this, once we have finished with Ford, we will move on to another auto manufacturer.
Ford never misses out on the opportunity to hack off customers and lose sales.
Yeah, Honda and Toyota are light-years ahead of the US manufacturers in terms of reliability. I also am unhappy with Ford and the Ford Foundation's wallowing in the liberal/homosexual mire.
Their latest Ford Freestyle commercial with the divorced dad is what turns me off. Who could it possibly appeal to?
Thanks guys, for helping put us middle class workers out of business.
It was a Mercury SUV Hybrid for bubba......Makes me sick. My father and grandfather retired from Ford, as well as uncles, cousins, etc. Dad owns lots of tumbling downward ford stock. I hope this new guy cuts out the homo/leftist stuff pronto.
My son is a ford engineer. He told me last christmas that ford has been circling the drain for years. Now they go with the homosexuals and see sales plummet, but these lefties never learn. My own presbyterian church also went with the homosexuals, and I'm leaving them as well. Only way to get thru to them : vote with your car-buying pocketbook, and your praying knees....
I would LOVE to see GM build cars with a '55 Belair and Nomad retro look.
I think what Ford will end up doing is drastically cutting down their model lines and building far more "world" models sold everywhere. This means the next-generation Ford Focus will again be a single worldwide model, the next-generation Ford Fiesta will be sold in North America, and next-generation Ford Mondeo will also be sold as a single worldwide model.
"With all due respect for Freeper Ford fans, I'd never buy a Ford because of the Ford Foundation which supports every leftist cause you can think of and some you've never even heard of...."
While the Ford Foundation was started by the Ford family, it was set up as an independent organization, originally designed to do good works in the Detroit area. Henry Ford II admitted the lack of control was a major mistake.
They need to drop half their models..and start on some hybrids....actual hybrids...and buy and produce the electrical motors here and not buy from Toyota as they do now.....but then again they are chicken s**ts....it takes balls to make a big change...and advertising to gays doesn't cut it...American autos are crap.....unfortunatly I don't see a future for them
Honda reliability is much better than Toyota. In fact, Toyota recalled more vehicles in the U.S. than it sold last year. The company is delaying some new model introductions because of quality problems.
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