A couple of VERY good reads

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

http://www.hybridcars.com/news/long-time-g...pany-25553.html

Unless General Motors makes fundamental changes in its basic decision-making process, the company will be “back at the public trough again and again until the public finally grows weary and allows its demise.” That’s the view of Rob Kleinbaum, an auto industry business consultant who has worked or consulted for GM for the last 24 years.

http://www.umtri.umich.edu/content/RetoolingGM.pdf

(This guy is my new hero...)

[FUTURE_OF_GM]

In progressive cultures, people identify with groups well beyond the family and into society at large. GM falls directly into the static side. Despite substantial effort to create “one company”, GM is still surprisingly full of provincialism, based on both function and geography. Very few GM employees see themselves as truly belonging to the global enterprise; almost all identify themselves with their function and then the local business unit; viewing others as ignorant meddlers and sometimes outright adversaries. While many companies have embraced the notion of the “extended enterprise” and successfully manage complex alliance relationships, GM’s investments in major alliances; Fuji, Suzuki, Isuzu, and Fiat; were all great disappointments and had little if any return.

Of all GM’s cultural problems, this might be the most crippling as it perpetuates an inward focus that is largely responsible for its hostile relations with its dealers and suppliers and, most troubling, with consumers. As a consequence of its insularity, the company has repeatedly displayed behavior that shows it to be tone deaf to society at large and much of the external world has written off the company.

Calling PCS..................

[Chicagoland]

Even here on C&G, there are the Pontiac, Buick, whatever brand loyalists who think there favorite should 'get all the goodies'. Or, whenever there is a new Chevy, they yell, 'where is the Pontiac [etc] version?'

[wildcat]

Chicagoland: I like to think that none of the "brand loyalists" want their favorite to, as you put it "get all the goodies." Hopefully, they're more realistic than that. But I do think that it's entirely reasonable that the brand loyalists should want their favorite to get something class-leading and competitive, and not be starved of attention. For example, it's not fair for Chevrolet to hog everything, leaving nothing for the other makes. If, as in the past, Pontiac were the performance brand, then Pontiac should have received the performance models. If the brands truly were differentiated, it should have been simple to see where a new model or type od vehicle should fit. While I understand that Chevrolet had the role of volume leader, just because Chevy has a strong dealership doesn't mean that GM had to cave to its every whim and give it one (or more) of everything. GM should have been spreading out its product to the appropriate division(s), sharing platforms but not designs to the point where they're obvious rebadges. But I guess that's all water over the dam at this point. Edited March 2, 2009 by wildcat

[ShadowDog]

Even here on C&G, there are the Pontiac, Buick, whatever brand loyalists who think there favorite should 'get all the goodies'. Or, whenever there is a new Chevy, they yell, 'where is the Pontiac [etc] version?'

Certainly, I believe GM is largely responsible for setting up the consumer backlash that almost always came with the unveiling of a new model. If it wasn't that other division-loyalists/enthusiasts were complaining about what they aren't getting, it's the division-loyalists/enthusiasts of the unveiled vehicle complaining about what they didn't get!

There appears to be a great deal of insight in Mr. Kleinbaum's paper that is easy to understand from an outside point of view. In such times as before the financial crisis, when GM was already at a point of opportunity for change they could afford to implement just then, GM appears to have chosen the course of least resistance. Covering the eyes and saying, 'Steady as she goes,' while taking a peek for problems and concluding, 'Looks good, keep rowing,' is anything but adjusting for the times. To me, it's as if GM could develop a product, send it out and wait; as if to toss a piece of spaghetti against a wall to see if it sticks. More often than not, it didn't stick... maybe it wasn't done yet. I tend to think that the biggest issues are just as I'd read from the paper, that the internal structure within GM is one of inefficiency and outdated practices. Rather than a review of the internal structure to better provide for altering and updating the kind of decades-old operational activity the paper indicated existed, GM continued to acquire additional divisions and absorb what interested them.

Holy crap, GM is the Borg. They're phucked.

Edited March 2, 2009 by ShadowDog

[Oracle of Delphi]

Calling PCS..................

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