Interesting reading....
TOM WALSH: Detroit can believe - and win
August 29, 2003
BY TOM WALSH FREE PRESS COLUMNIST
Enough already.
Are you tired of hearing about the fabulous Toyota production system, the great Honda engines, the superb German engineering of Mercedes and BMW? The unbeatable quality of Lexus?
Yeah, me too.
I don't believe for a minute that assembly line workers in Wixom or Detroit are inferior to assembly line workers in Japan, Germany, Georgetown, Ky., or Marysville, Ohio. And I don't believe that engineers in Tokyo or Bavaria are smarter than engineers in Warren or Dearborn.
But I wonder . . .
Do the hourly workers and engineers and designers at General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and DaimlerChrysler AG's Chrysler Group believe their companies are as good as Toyota, Honda, Nissan and BMW?
I suspect not.
Many GM, Ford and Chrysler workers, judging from my e-mail, don't believe they play on teams as good as their main rivals. And it's no wonder.
I've sat in the offices of GM executives who proudly display Toyota logo-wear as a sign of the superior performance that their own troops should emulate.
I read in my own newspaper that Chrysler's top labor negotiator says the southern United States factories of Toyota, Nissan, BMW and others have superior business models.
I've watched hangdog Detroit auto executives shrug like henpecked husbands as Wall Street analysts scold them about incentive costs and extol the efficiencies of their competitors.
Enough already. It's time to stop with the hand-wringing and the apologizing. It's time to go kick some butt.
This is not some jingoistic call to rally Team USA. And I mean no disrespect to Toyota, Honda, BMW, Nissan, Mitsubishi and Hyundai. They're entitled to play on our continent if we play on theirs.
Those companies deserve our respect. They should not, however, be treated with reverence or held in awe.
Could the Red Wings have won those Stanley Cups if the players treated Patrick Roy and other opposing goalies with reverence and awe? Could the Detroit Pistons have won those 1989-90 titles by revering the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers as unbeatable foes?
No, of course not. In order to win, a team's coaches and players must believe they can win. And they must talk and walk like they can win.
One company steps up Thankfully, GM is starting to flex some butt-kicking muscle. (Forget about Ford and Chrysler for now; Ford is only midway through a massive restructuring and DaimlerChrysler is still in a post-merger identity crisis).
GM leaders aren't talking or walking too boldly yet; they're like a woozy boxer just risen from the canvas after a knockdown. But they are no longer ashamed of themselves or their company name.
Just 13 years ago, the new Saturn brand was pitched as everything its stodgy parent GM was not -- friendly, flexible, modern. The GM affiliation was seen as a liability, not an asset. But that's changing.
About three years ago, CEO Rick Wagoner started asking his own people what the GM brand stood for. They had no clue, collectively. Since then, GM has quietly, but rigorously, gone about forging a concept for the corporate brand that comes down to three words: Powerful, Engaging and Dynamic. Every vehicle GM builds should bring those words to mind. Every TV ad, every auto show display should evoke the same words.
After Sept. 11, 2001, when the "Keep America Rolling" campaign of no-interest loans caught the public imagination, the notion took hold that heavier marketing use of the GM brand name could boost sales of the individual vehicle brands.
GM won't talk about the size of its ad budget, reportedly around $200 million last year, except to say that it's growing.
From GM's 24-hour test drive ad campaign earlier this summer to the mid-August rollout of its revamped
After a long decline, GM has made major strides in quality improvement and customer and dealer satisfaction. Those gains, and aggressive rebates, helped boost GM's market share the past two years.
In a newspaper and magazine ad campaign this summer dubbed "Road to Redemption," GM apologizes for its three decades of wandering in the automotive wilderness and invites long-lost customers to return.
OK, we get it. Detroit's automotive leadership isn't in denial anymore.
But enough already with the apologies. Enough already with all the fawning praise of Toyota and the other transplants.
If GM wants to remain the world's largest automaker, if Ford and Chrysler and the UAW want to survive and thrive, they need to talk and walk like they believe they can win.
Patrick '93 Cobra '83 LTD