Wednesday, 11 July 2012

6-2 Controlling for Success

This post focuses on a "recession winning" company, the company I chose to investigate is Ford Motor Co. Ford alone escaped bankruptcy and government bailout as compared to the other North American auto makers, allowing Ford to eclipse GM as the number one American automaker.

I found an article written in 2008 by   It was the work of CEO Alan Mulally who mortgaged the company’s name to build up $24 billion worth of financing just before the recession a move some say was luck, lucky or not this cash nest egg helped Ford ride out the recession.

Another reason Ford was able to come out a winner was identifying the changes in customer demand revamping their product line and introducing smaller more fuel efficient cars from their European lines. While GM and Chrysler were still pumping out big gas guzzlers Ford was looking at other ideas and not relying on their trucks as much. The new line has been a success and has continued to grow as this sales release from ford indicates http://corporate.ford.com/our-company/investors/investor-news/investor-news-detail/pr-ford-motor-company-june-and-36703. Here are some of the highlights from June 2012.

  • Ford Motor Company’s year-to-date U.S. sales through June increase 7 percent, totaling 1.14 million vehicles; June sales increase 7 percent from last year at 207,759 vehicles sold
  • Ford's Escape sales have increased 28 percent – the vehicle’s best month ever; the all-new 2013 Escape is selling on dealer lots in less than five days
  • Ford Fusion sales in June increase 17 percent – the best June sales performance ever
  • Ford Explorer sales up 35 percent in June and 15 percent year to date
  • Ford F-Series sales top 50,000 – the best June sales performance in five years, with 55,025 pickups sold
Ford was able to see some problems internally and make some very strategic moves to take their place as a "recession winner", their ability to listen to the economy and the consumers sailed them to number one in America and with Alan Mulally as the self proclaimed "pilot" look for more great things from Ford.

Alan Mulally inteview http://money.cnn.com/video/fortune/2010/01/12/f_sl_mulally_ford.fortune/
Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Stephan21 July 2012 at 12:34

    Hi Adam,

    Great post, thanks for sharing this information. I agree with you that part of Ford's success was not just relying on what has been working previously, but actively listening to what customers want and focusing more on fuel efficient vehicles in a time when everyone has to watch every cent.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)