The Brave New Automotive World, 2009 Remix

A lot of my old time blog readers have been encouraging me to post my thoughts and analysis more often. I have to admit that I must be the world's worst blogger -- almost one year between posts. It's pathetic, I know.

That being said, I thought I would comment and offer my analysis about all of the changes in the last year in the automotive industry (since 2010 is rapidly approaching). I will also offer my thoughts on how I think things will look in 2020.

So what has changed in 2009? A lot really....

• General Motors -- GM went into bankruptcy and came out sans a lot of cost burdens including several unprofitable union and supplier contracts. The company shed thousands of high cost white and blue collar jobs, old plants, dealership agreements and other legacy costs. GM is also selling Opel, Hummer and Saab. It's shutting down Saturn quickly, unless a last minute suitor comes in to save the day. Bob Lutz has thrown down the gauntlet to GM's advertising agencies to come up with new product oriented advertising campaigns or risk losing their account (see Modernista-Cadillac). The new Chairman Whitacre is in new TV ads asking the American public to trust GM and their products once again. Will it work? Probably not, but I hope it does. The trust that the American public had with GM has been eroded by the sins of the past -- bad quality cars in the 1960's-1980's, recent financial situation and an ever-changing corporate strategy. Where will GM be in 2020? I would predict that GM will finally decide to radically change their game plan for good -- keep their improved quality high, change their name, move out of Detroit to eliminate the stigma of lingering failure, place bets on new technologies (like whatever is beyond plug-in electrics and hybrids) and go with a more non-automotive high tech Silicon Valley management style. With the various tax advantage packages being offered by several states, it wouldn't surprise me to see GM move its headquarters to Texas, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Tennessee or Oklahoma. A more radical move would be overseas. Some large U.S. companies are doing this now believe it or not.
  
  
• Chrysler is quickly becoming Fiat West and is leveraging their new parent company's vehicle platforms and existing European models. A new, aggressive young management team at Chrysler is changing a lot of longstanding and ingrained management practices and is seeking new advertising agencies and innovative ways to cut costs. The old guard at Chrysler is long gone and the new team is settling in. By 2020, I would guess that Chrysler is back to producing products that are brand icons like Jeep products (I love my Jeep Grand Cherokee, by the way), new generation Dodge pickups and performance cars and rebadged Fiat saloons (that's sedans for us Americans) that are sleek, stylish and performance rich.
  
  
• Ford fared the best of the former Big Three by borrowing money at the right time before the economic and lending meltdown, hiring a non-automotive CEO who is slowing tearing away the status quo product development/embedded marketing practices, and not taking any U.S. government help or going the bankruptcy route. Ford is still too set in their ways for my tastes -- Safe cars designs, conservative middle management and a weak Asian presence. Like the other U.S. automakers, Ford has shed a lot of its legacy burdens over the past decade. In 2020, I think Ford will be in the thick of the U.S. market share leadership battle with Toyota, Honda and Hyundai. Hopefully, Alan Mullaly's successor will go the whole way and really push the envelope by implementing a best-in-class product design team, finding more cost effective production locations and continuing the push to grab share.
  
  
• Everyone in the industry is worried about Toyota. I'm not. With billions in the bank, a solid product lineup and great technologies on the ground and in development, Toyota and Honda may be the safest bets of all of the global auto makers. Toyota's long term stealth "winning the hearts and minds" campaign in the U.S. includes production facilities in small Midwest and rural communities, a focused Texas-specific pickup production and marketing strategy (the epicenter for pickup truck ownership in the U.S.) and an Eco-friendly hybrid vehicle platform that has already won over a large following among most environmentally conscious Americans. In 2020, I expect Toyota to be #1 in market share with a minority of its U.S. fleet being comprised of gasoline fueled cars and trucks.
  
  
• Unfortunately, not everyone will be a winner. I have a hard time believing that Mitsubishi, GM's GMC and Buick divisions, Ford's Mercury and Smart will still be around in 2020. I hope Saab is still around then but logic tells me they won't be.
  
  
• We will likely see a much more streamlined U.S. dealer body and more direct online retailing of vehicles by 2020 through online ordering systems and even larger retailers (why not WalMart?).
  
  
• I wouldn't be surprised to see new American car companies emerge, Europeans returning (Peugeot-Citroen) and maybe even a few new players from China and India (Nano?).

2020 isn't that far away, folks. Who will be left, what will happen to the former Big Three and where will technology be in 2020? I would be interested in hearing your predictions for 2020 as well.

Sad State of Affairs for Detroit's Big Three

With the recent financial woes of the Big Three automakers, the question that bears answering is "how did we get to this point?" How did these companies fall into such financial crisis so quickly? Several thousand recently laid off or bought out blue and white collar workers are asking the same questions. The answers to these questions are simple but politically incorrect. Here is my personal analysis of the downfall of the Big Three --

Poorly Designed Products -- Conservative vehicle designs coupled with lackluster reception by the American public are the main reason that these automakers have stumbled badly. Large gas gulping SUV's and bland mid-size sedans were a Big Three staple during the 2002-2008 time period. Having been privy to research done by these automakers, they knew that these vehicles would fall flat before launch but launched them anyway. Apparently, market researchers failed to convince senior executives of the failings of these products. The product czars at most of the American automakers have very strong personalities and don't like to be told that their products are not on target.

Overpriced Labor -- About a decade too late, the Big Three is rapidly downsizing its' blue collar payroll and hiring new lower priced labor to build its products in the U.S. Due to severe pressure from the domestic automakers, the UAW has complied with their requests for a two-tier wage system to save jobs and protect their older workers. The next battleground will undoubtedly be retiree pension and medical benefits. According to some sources, in the U.S. we have 3 retired UAW members (drawing a pension and getting medical benefits) for every active UAW member. Long term, this current situation is untenable. The fate of white collar workers is even darker. Without the protection of any union, the ranks of white collar employees are quickly dwindling.

Long term, I think Chrysler will find a partner in Hyundai, Renault-Nissan or another major automaker to save what's left of the company. General Motors will likely emerge from this current situation as a much leaner and aggressive organization, with a strong emphasis on new products geared towards the American populace. Surprisingly, Ford seems the most reluctant to change and seems to be stubbornly sticking with its current product lineup and is intent to keeping Mercury alive despite poor sales and a lackluster product lineup.

Here's hoping that they all pull out of the current maelstrom and survive to fight another day.

Dead Brand Walking

In recent statements to the press, Tracinda's Jerry York quipped on "what he would do" if he were running Ford Motor Company, namely sell off or axe Volvo and Mercury. Tracinda is looking to invest heavily into Ford after failed forays at Chrysler and GM. After some thought, he may be onto something here but these two brands are in different situations. Since my time at Ford in the late 1980's (and even before that), Mercury was always the red-headed stepchild -- product-starved, little advertising or marketing and a revolving door of brand managers passing through the Ford executive training program. Everyone had to do a stint at Mercury, ask Bill Ford. The Mercury situation is little improved twenty years later. So why does Ford keep them around? That's easy -- they don't want to piss off their dealers (no rocket science there). It has little to do with loyal Mercury customers or orphaned product lines. It has everything to do with potential lawsuits, bad press and massive dealer buyouts. GM went through this organizational trauma when it shutdown the ancient Oldsmobile brand earlier this decade -- it was a painful and very expensive bullet to bite.

Volvo is another breed of brand. Volvo has a distinct and loyal fan base, quirky but fun vehicle designs and a premium European cache. For full disclosure, I have to say I am a Volvo owner wannabe -- so I own a Saab instead -- and have been wanting to buy an XC90 for the last four years to no avail. Volvo dealers are also a different set of dealers. Often nestled in tony suburbs of major metro areas, these dealers have pockets of repeat buyers and a cool product to sell. As an organization, Ford has abused Volvo just slightly less than Mercury. In the 1980's and 1990's, Volvo was headquartered in the affluent suburbs of NYC (Northern NJ) before joining their Premium Automotive Group brethren in Irvine, California for a few years. Now Ford is moving Volvo back to NJ to be near its largest buyer base in the Northeast US. Volvo has also been on the low end of the totem pole with marketing and advertising dollars for the past few years.

So what would I do if I were Mr. Mullaly? Shutdown Mercury ASAP, it's been a dead brand walking for twenty years. Keep Volvo but give them some space. Let them design their own vehicles, market and sell to their core base and basically let them be.

Detroit Paralysis Cure

With all of the major announcements coming from Detroit on union deals, new marketing campaigns and exciting new product introductions, you have to look inside each domestic car maker to examine whether their ultra-conservative DNA has truly changed.

During my discussions with mid-level OEM insiders, the fear of change combined with pervasive job insecurity has resulted in a severe mid-management paralysis. With all of the auto CEO's claiming a new direction/path, it will only work if everyone in the organization is on-board and pulling in the same direction, this includes mid-management.

Stepping out into a new direction -- cutting-edge designs, innovative advertising campaigns or advanced consumer research -- is politely discussed and then discarded as being too risky. This risk aversion has 100-years of roots and is deep seeded into the corporate culture of these companies.

Former GM top executive Ron Zarella was chided by old-school automotive industry veterans for his treatment of cars and trucks as household brands that required professional brand management. He brought several great minds to GM from the consumer products and consumer packaged goods industries only to meet mediocre success. Why did this new initiative fail? The conservative mid-management has hampered its full implementation.

Is the tide turning? A little. The domestic auto makers rarely change their advertising agencies due to this risk aversion. Very few exceptions occur but one notable one is GM's turning to funky Modernista http://www.modernista.com/ for their Hummer and Cadillac division's advertising. With Lutz-inspired designs, GM is also turning the corner on the design front.

With Ford, true change has been challenging. Using the same advertising and market research agencies since....well....forever and continual bland designs, Ford's market share has been slipping over the past fifteen years. Having worked at Ford many years ago (1989-1991), I can tell you very little has changed in terms of risk aversion.

When I worked in NAAO prototype purchasing during those years, I saw some striking prototypes and concept cars. One of the more notable ones that I saw was a Mark VIII with funky Coral or Forest Green interiors, new LED lighting and extensive chrome interior accents. Of course, these features and color schemes never made it to production. Unfortunately, the toning down of great, new ideas is legendary.

Some radical suggestions for conservative car makers....

* Replace the existing vehicle designers with the best "product" designers in the world. Make sure they do not have restrictions in terms of their creativity or expression of new designs. Hire people from Apple, Rolex and the best fashion houses in the world. Ban design reviews with mid-level executives and let the product communicate to the market directly without being watered down.

* Replace your advertising and market research agencies with small, funky boutique agencies. Prohibit these supplier companies from hiring active or retired employees from within their company. Burn all paper surveys, old studies and bar focus groups, send your researchers on the road to listen to real live American consumers. Researchers don't need to sit in cubicles under fluorescent lights, they need to assimilate themselves into the market and truly understand their brand's core audience.

If your market share has been slipping, radical change is the only cure. The status quo ain't working folks!