No Quick Fix for Automakers

Bigthree

If I’ve learned one thing in my time in past companies, one step away from the executive suite — and now interacting with senior leaders at client companies — is that until you deal with all the moving parts as you move from strategy to tactics yourself, there is no way you can understand.

It’s simple to be a Monday morning quarterback and analyze how things could’ve been done better in the past. It’s even easier to be a blogger putting out a post like this with a bunch of high level recommendations. I love ya Scoble, but you haven’t managed anything bigger than a discount camera store and I’m guessing you haven’t done a major analysis of the automotive value chain, so many who have will undoubtedly think your post is kinda cute.

Like Scoble, my last post was a personal rant about the ‘bailout’ since there is something fundamentally wrong with the automotive business, and is one that certainly needs a complete restructuring (which, to be fair to Scoble, was one of his suggestions) and this overhaul is exactly what a bankruptcy would create.

Few of us can appreciate the magnitude of the problems the big three automakers are facing and a reorganization isn’t going to fix overwhelming systemic problems. Combined with the lead-time necessary to design a new car platform, coordinate and orchestrate the entire supply chain, deliver product through the channel, create a global campaign to launch it and put the car into production, and you have a multi-year change needed at a time when capital isn’t flowing and credit markets remain paralyzed.

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