How could one company—General Motors—meet disaster on one continent and achieve explosive growth on another at the very same time?While General Motors was hurtling towards bankruptcy in 2009, GM’s ...subsidiary in China was setting new sales and profit records. This book reveals how extraordinary people, remarkable decisions and surprising breaks made triumph in China possible for General Motors. It also shows just how vulnerable that winning track record remains. No small part of GM’s success in China springs from its management of shifting business and political relationships. In China, the government makes the rules for—and competes in—the auto industry. GM’s business partner, the City of Shanghai, is both an ally and a competitor. How does such an unnatural relationship work on a day-to-day basis? Where will it go on the future? General Motors also engages in constant battles with other global and Chinese car makers for the hearts of demanding Chinese consumers. Dunne gives us rare glimpses into the mindsets and behavior of this new moneyed set, the worlds newest class of wealthy consumers.China is already the number one car market in the world. During the next ten years, China will export millions of cars and trucks globally, including to the United States. American Wheels, Chinese Roads presents readers with fascinating illustrations of what to expect when Chinese cars, companies, and business people arrive on our shores.
Sixty to Zero Taylor, Alex, III; Jackson, Mike; Taylor, Alex
05/2010
eBook
The collapse of General Motors captured headlines in early 2009, but as Alex Taylor III writes in this in-depth dissection of the automaker's undoing, GM's was a meltdown forty years in the making. ...Drawing on more than thirty years of experience and insight as an automotive industry reporter, as well as personal relationships with many of the leading players, Taylor reveals the many missteps of GM and its competitors: a refusal to follow market cues and consumer trends; a lack of follow-through on major initiatives; and a history of hesitance, inaction, and failure to learn from mistakes. In the process, he provides lasting lessons for every executive who confronts the challenges of a changing marketplace and global competition. Yet Taylor resists condemning GM's leadership from the privileged view of hindsight. Instead, his account enables the reader to see GM's decline through the eyes of an insider, with the understanding that corporate decision-making at a company as large as General Motors isn't as simple as it may seem. Taylor's book serves as a marvelous case study of one of the United States' premier companies, of which every American quite literally now holds a share.
An insider exposes the strategic decisions that have caused the foundation of America?s industrial sector to crumble, then lays out a plan for its restoration. The author led GM Chairman John Smale?s ...Scenario Planning Staff in the mid-1990s and Roger Smith?s development of a Saturn expansion proposal in the late-1980s after a career in GM plant operations designing and managing manufacturing systems.
Published in 1964, My Years with General Motors was an immediate best-seller and today is considered one of the few classic books on management. The book is the ghostwritten memoir of Alfred P. ...Sloan, Jr. (1875-1966), whose business and management strategies enabled General Motors to overtake Ford as the dominant American automobile manufacturer in the 1920s and 1930s. What has been largely unknown until now is that My Years with General Motors was almost not published. Although it was written with the permission of General Motors—and slated for publication in October 1959—at the last minute General Motors tried to suppress the book out of fears that some of the material in it could become evidence in an antitrust action against the company. This book, by John McDonald, Sloan's ghostwriter, tells the behind-the-scenes story of the book's writing, its attempted suppression, and the lawsuit that eventually led to its publication. McDonald's narrative is partly the David-and-Goliath story of a lone journalist taking on the world's then-largest corporation and partly a study of strategy in its own right. McDonald's struggle to publish the book led him to navigate a complicated course among the competing interests of General Motors, Fortune magazine (his employer), and Time, Inc. (Fortune's owner). In many ways this "book about the book" parallels the Sloan book as a tale of successful, brilliantly planned strategy.
Australia’s economy has experienced profound change over the last decade in response to the opportunities generated by the expansion of the mining industry, the strength of the Australian dollar and ...ongoing competition within global markets. The new economic environment has, however, resulted in the decline of some established industries and the loss of employment from high profile enterprises, including Bluescope Steel, Bridgestone Tyres, General Motors Holden and Mitsubishi Motors. Large-scale redundancies have resulted in government structural adjustment packages that seek to reduce unemployment and encourage the economic revitalisation of the affected region. Such arrangements have been criticised. Despite these concerns, structural adjustment measures are commonly used across Australia and, depending upon definition, more than $88 bn was committed to these programmes by the Australian Government over the period 2000–12. New programmes continue to be rolled out, while other industries call for support. This paper evaluates the outcomes of structural adjustment programmes in Australia and considers the use of such measures relative to other developed economies, including those in Europe. It considers the impact of these schemes on the target communities, including those made unemployed, and whether there is the possibility of identifying better solutions to the challenges confronting communities undergoing change.
The economic downturn that began in 2007–2008 was blamed by some commentators on neoliberalism and pro‐business policies. So we might expect U.S. state and local governments to have responded with ...policy changes affecting their neoliberal economic development strategies. Based on this assumption, this paper is a theoretically informed examination of recent high‐profile bidding wars in Wisconsin. The highest profile example was in 2009 when General Motors chose a plant in Michigan over Wisconsin and Tennessee for a new small car line. Wisconsin's Commerce Secretary characterized Michigan's $1.2 billion incentive offer as “absolutely crazy” (compared with his state's $409 million offer!). My main research question is how have Wisconsin state and local governments adjusted their neoliberal economic development efforts in these bidding wars given the recent economic downturn and weak economy? This paper uses the largest incentive offers in Wisconsin during the tenure of the current and previous state governors within the context of ten themes drawn from the literature to problematize the neoliberal policy of bidding for big business. It concludes by considering the implications for economic development policies.
Research on economic patriotism has so far focused on public policy and only marginally addressed the role of non-state actors. This contribution seeks to fill this gap. It examines the emergence of ...a European economic patriotism discourse among trade union representatives at General Motors since the late 1990s, which underpinned the operation of the company's 'European works council', a statutory body of employee representation mandated by a 1994 European Union directive. It argues that the new trade union emphasis on 'European interests' vis-à-vis subsidiaries in other world regions, and vis-à-vis GM's global headquarter in Detroit, reflected a (partial) 'upward shift' of patriotism from the national to the European level in response to corporate globalization. It also highlights the limited and fragile nature of European patriotism, which was severely challenged during the recent global economic crisis
After many years of declining fortunes, the Detroit Three carmakers were at risk of closure and liquidation during the severe recession of 2008-2009. Efforts by the Bush and Obama administrations to ...support the carmakers culminated in a government-managed reorganization of Chrysler and General Motors during 2009. As a result of the restructuring, the two carmakers emerged from bankruptcy protection with lower labor costs, higher capacity utilization, and a more concentrated geographic distribution of assembly plants.
How did a major corporation manage to turn itself around while Wall Street and others continued to predict its slow death? The answer may surprise you, and it provides a model for corporate ...transformation for any company or government agency operating in a world of accelerating change. The company is General Motors, and this book tells how it was able to change the way important decisions were made, leading to resurgence in business across its many product lines. At the beginning of the 1990s, GM was perceived by nearly everyone as falling behind its competitors at an alarming rate. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, though, the company had come storming back with successful new automobiles and new business concepts that captured new markets, while simultaneously holding on to many of its existing customers. What GM did is not just the story of a single automaker, but rather a compelling insight into an approach for any business organization that is faced with the need for a true transformation. As many companies have discovered, efforts at transformation too often fail. GM#x2019;s successful transformation illustrates the importance of management#x2019;s ability to change its mindset and make the tough decisions that revitalize business with bold new products and business concepts. At the heart of successful transformation is the imagination, courage and leadership required to visualize the kind of company an organization wants to become and then work toward that goal. With the destination set and understood by those who will need to implement the changes, decision-makers find it less difficult to overcome impediments to achieving their goal while finding creative ways of doing what may seem impossible. The lessons from GMs turnaround can help any business organization change and keep pace with today#x2019;s turbulent marketplace.
The Detroit automakers’ Retiree Medical Benefits Trust is the nation’s largest Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association (VEBA). It is an independent trust with assets of $60 billion that is ...responsible for providing medical, prescription drug, dental and vision benefits to 720,000 hourly retirees, surviving spouses and dependents of General Motors, Ford and Fiat Chrysler. It was established in 2007 through the joint efforts of the Big Three Detroit automakers and the United Automobile Workers Union primarily to protect the health care benefits of hourly retirees and to provide the companies with financial relief from the burdens of legacy costs that eventually contributed to their bankruptcies. Although it is now viewed as a success, there were times in its history when its inception and future were seriously in doubt. A review of its history will inform HR professionals of the problems and solutions they may encounter in establishing a VEBA.
