...Motors acquire EDS in 1984? General Motors (GM) is a multinational, publically traded corporation that specializes in automotive production, distribution, sales and maintenance. The technological boom experienced within the manufacturing industry in the later part of the 20th century created an opportunity to implement various Information Technology Systems and services to monitor all internal activities within a given organization. With the slumming stock prices and increasing pressure from international competition, GM’s only option was to automate its ongoing operations in hopes of becoming more effective and efficient in delivering top-quality products to the end customers. There were two possible options to proceed with automation of various services within the organization - outsourcing IT services to an independent body, or branching out current operations in order to have an in-house service provider. Due to specific time constraints and obligation to its shareholders to improve the stock performance, corporate managers in GM have decided to look for a strong, medium-sized IT service provider which could accomplish the much needed transition. At the time, in mid-1980’s, EDS was considered to be a mid-level provider of IT services, with expertise and corporate culture matching the GM needs. This resulted in GM acquiring EDS in 1984 for $2.55 billion, ensuing in the subsequent modernization of operations and establishing GM as a market leader, once again making it competitive...
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...founded in September of 1908 by William Durant. Durant was a leading manufacturer of hoarse drawn vehicles in Flint Michigan. At its inception GM held only the Buick Motor Company, but in a matter of years would acquire more than 20 companies including Oldsmobile, Cadillac, and Oakland, today known as Pontiac. By the 1920’s the demand for automobiles had grown unexpectedly. General Motors was setting the pace of production, design, and marketing innovation that other manufacturers would have to follow if they were to survive. General Motors began to diversify by adding sever different names to the General Motors name, Chevrolet, Vauxhall, and Opel. These lines made added to the reach of GM. The GM motto was “a car for every purse and purpose”( http://www.gm.com/company/historyAndHerit age/acceleration.html). By becoming so diverse, GM proved to the world that the automobile was more than just a means of transportation. By the 60’s GM was facing new challenges and new changes. Environmental concerns were becoming more apparent, and the foreign market played a role in GM’s downsizing of its automobiles. In order to stay diverse and competitive GM was forced to reengineer many of its models. By the 1970’s, GM once again proved diverse and cutting edge ability by introducing the first engines to run off low lead, or un leaded gasoline. GM was beginning to understand that in order to stay diverse and competitive it had to keep up with the market. By being so revolutionary in the...
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...GM Structure and Performance Structure GM has decided a restructured North America organization with a flurry of key leadership changes across core North American brands, such as Chevrolet, Cadillac, and Buick-GMC. GM has found a better way to structure their organization. The structure is very simple, it is a clearer marketing focus to sell more vehicles, and freeing their sales and service experts to focus on customers and dealers. The key to becoming very successful in North America, they need the right mix of product, people, and structure. They have worked with a small group of executive to align the model and appoint the best candidates for each job. GM believes that the structure has been developed with few layers as possible to help between them, the dealer, and the customer. By removing the layers and giving leaders accountability this allows them to move faster and focus on what needs to be done. http://gmauthority.com/blog/2010/03/gm-announces-major-organizational-changes-to-gm-north-america-with-org-chart/ Performance Based on the Vehicle Performance Center, the GM Performance Division is located on the General Motors Technical Center campus in Warren, Michigan. The VPC has 18 full-instrumented engine dyno cells, a complete engine-building center complimented by full fabrication capabilities, multiple chassis test cells, substantial office space and a cafeteria. The GM Performance Division is responsible for the performance vehicle for the various brands...
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...General Motors: General Motors Corporation (GM) is a multinational automobile manufacturer created in 1908.its headquarter is in the United States. GM is the world's largest automaker as measured according to the global industry sales. GM is the proud sales leader in the automotive industry for the for the last 77 years. As of 2008, General Motors employs about 266,000 people around the world. It manufactures its cars and trucks in 35 different countries. The famous brands under the umbrella of GM are Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GM Daewoo, GMC, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, Vauxhall, and Wuling. In 2008, General Motors was the ninth largest publicly traded company in the world. In recent years the company has faced significant financial turmoils, including a 38 billion dollar loss in 2007. General Motors Today: From 1908 to 1976, it had grown expansively. But today its market share has gone down and together, with challenges posed by economic conditions, in the form of increasing healthcare costs and fuel costs and cut throat competition GM is facing a tough time in maintaining its profits. GM is deriving its 100% profits from financing cars and not from the sales of vehicles. Internal factors that account for this decline are the failure of the company to adapt to the changes in the environment such as the consumer preferences and technology, lack of differentiation applied to products and lack of effective cost leadership strategies to efficiently manage...
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...for Africa to reject GM crops Zachary Makanya | 25 July 2004 Zachary Makanya Africa is in danger of becoming the dumping ground for the struggling GM industry and the laboratory for frustrated scientists. The proponents of GM technology sell a sweet message of GM crops bringing the second green revolution and the answer to African hunger, but a closer look makes it clear that GM crops have no place in African agriculture. The push to bring genetically modified (GM) crops into African agriculture is not letting up, even as (and partly because) the GM industry is faltering in much of the world. A growing list of organizations, networks and lobby groups with close ties to the GM industry are working to promote GM agriculture on the continent. GM crops are so far only commercially available in South Africa, but there have been field trials in Kenya, Egypt and Burkina Faso, and also in Senegal and Zimbabwe where there was no public knowledge or regulatory oversight. At least12 African countries are carrying out research on GM crops, including Egypt, Uganda, Morocco, Nigeria, Tunisia and Cameroon, and a long list of GM crops are in the pipeline for introduction in various African countries (see map). There's also concern that GM crops are coming in by way of food imports and seed smuggling, even for countries that have taken measures to prevent imports of GM food, such as Zambia, Angola, Sudan, and Benin. In short, Africa is in danger of becoming the dumping ground for...
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...market shares and a changing industry, General Motors (GM) launched an ambitious effort that transformed its supply chain and made customer satisfaction a priority (Cohen & Roussel, 2005). In the late 1990s, the Internet seemed poised to transform the automobile industry. Consumers armed with information could quickly compare prices, options, quality, and service—and make more informed choices. General Motors observed these changes warily. By the late 1990s the need for change was becoming clear. Consumers were more savvy, powerful, and demanding. Yet GM's responsiveness lagged the industry (Cohen & Roussel, 2005). Dealers grew increasingly frustrated by the mix of inventory foisted on them. Even in key markets, dealer lots were clogged with over 100 days of supply. To clear out slow-moving products, GM had to offer sales incentives, which squeezed profit margins (Cohen & Roussel, 2005) Dealers couldn't get the vehicles they wanted—the vehicles their customers wanted. Desirable options such as aluminum wheels, leather interiors, and V8 engines often were not available in adequate quantities. Unavailable options, or constraints, were high at GM dealerships relative to the industry as whole, averaging tens of thousands of orders affected at any given time over the range of GM products (Cohen & Roussel, 2005). Patrons who chose to special-order a vehicle had to wait as long as 70 to 80 days for it to arrive. Also, GM was uncertain of its delivery-date reliability because...
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...the financial crisis of 2008, GM emerged as one of the primary recipients and is a leader with great long term prospects in an industry which will only become more regulated. According to an automotive industry executive survey conducted by KPMG, “fuel efficiency remains the single biggest factor when buying a vehicle” . Additionally, KPMG reports that urbanization is becoming a prominent problem in megacities where parking space is scarce and pollution is rampant. States and international countries have begun to recognize this and influential organizations such as the California Air Resources Board (CARB) have placed laws to regulate the automotive industry. Because of these regulations in the market, GM, a producer of consumer and commercial automobiles with a market cap of $38,835.7 million, is in a better position than Navistar, a producer of commercial and military vehicles and a market cap of $1,613.2 million. Due to the rising concerns over the environment and the nature of the automotive industry, there is a risk run by both companies that changing government policies will increase costs and decrease profits in the long term. However, GM is a company whose product group is more diversified than Navistar’s. While Navistar focuses on the heavier grade automobiles such as commercial fleets, RV’s, and military trucks which require fuel-hungry and polluting engines, GM offers automobiles in both the commercial and consumer space. This allows GM to focus on a mix of light and...
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...that GM faces is when the firm announced a $10.6 billion loss, which was their first in 12 years. The auditors for General Motors even thought that the firm’s survival was in substantial doubt even if they received the additional $30 billion they were going to borrow from the federal government. The problems have grown as a result of mistakes by GM’s management over the last 30 years. They built up a bloated bureaucracy that supplied boring, low-quality cars for many years. GM will also lose leadership of the United States market, having already been replaced by Toyota as the world’s largest automaker. GM has been burdened with a high cost structure result of contracts that they signed in order to end a prolonged strike by the United Automobile Workers. They faced the biggest challenge in dealing with health and retirement benefits that GM had. The huge costs made it difficult to cut back on the productions of GM, even if that meant they had to rely on incentives to get the cars of the lots. They were also struggling with the sales of their lineups of passenger cars. Some people think that GM will not be able to move fast enough on their reorganization in order to become competitive again, and that they will fail in the meantime. Analysis: GM faces millions of dollars in losses; due to the government loans they were receiving in order to hopefully accomplish some restructuring play. The former heads such as Frederic Donner and Roger Smith were the reason that GM made...
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...centric base. Toyota prides it's self on the fact that it's management principle differs from those taught in B-schools. Senior Executives take great pleasure in explaining that other companies find it difficult to emulate Toyota because it's management tools matter less than it's mind-set. Toyota was the world's leader in hybrid technology being the first to produce a hybrid car, an innovation years a head the rest. Toyota has seen green in the years leading up to becoming number one in the US. 11 out of the past 12 years, they have been the number one auto manufacture. GM, a US based automotive organization has fallen from it's once covenant number one seat to the bottom. This year alone GM has had more recalls then sales. GM's customers are looking at other brands, even long time die hard GM fans are starting to lose faith. GM is always looking for new ways to dwindle stock down. For example: Chevy's one dollar down drive away sale. It's a desperate attempt to move stock even with all the recalls. The CEO of GM was removed from his position from by the President of the United States. If you have toxic leadership your whole morale of the company will dwindle and...
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...RESEARCH PAPER ON GM Introduction "General Motors has no bad years, only good years and better years" (Sloan, 1972). This mantra established in 1950 by former GM president Harlow H. Curtice may have been true at one point, but is called into question today by many, including Wall Street. General Motors Corporation, also known, as GM or GMC is the world’s 2nd largest auto company in sales revenue behind Toyota which took the lead in 2006. General Motors reigned as the global leader in the automobile industry for the last 76 years, which was longer than any other automaker. Today, Richard Wagoner, Jr., GM Chairman and CEO currently runs GM, which was founded in 1908. GM today employs approximately 324,000 people around the world, with their global headquarters in Detroit Michigan. Their European headquarters is based in Zurich, Switzerland. In 2006, 9.1 million GM cars and trucks were sold globally under the following brands: Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM, Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, and Vauxhall. General Motors has a superb relationship with international connection. GM takes pride in fostering global partnerships and consumer relationships. GM is majority shareholder in GM Daewoo auto & Technology Co. of South Korea and has had collaborative ventures in technology and manufacturing with several other automakers. It also has ventures with Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation of China. GM’s largest national market is the United...
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...Dethroning of General Motors Abstract General Motors, GM was unseated from being the world’s top auto manufacture to Toyota. There were many factors involved which resulted in GM losing its position. This paper will explore several of the factors such as union relationships that resulted in payroll differentials between GM and foreign transplants, legacy costs, and the job banks program. Secondly, poor strategic management decisions including product development and the quality gap issues between GM and its Japanese competitors. Finally, the effects of foreign competition including imports from Japan, foreign transplants here in the U.S. and currency manipulation by the Japanese Government will be explored. “What’s good for GM is good the country.” This statement is attributed to former General Motors CEO, Charles Wilson during his 1953 Senate confirmation hearing to become President Eisenhower’s Defense Secretary. The quote has been taken out of context over the years. In response to a question posed by a senator who asked Mr. Wilson if he could make decisions that would be harmful to GM, Wilson stated he would be able to, but continued by adding that he could not imagine such a situation, “because for years I thought what was good for the county was good for General Motors and vice versa.” (“The Rise and Fall of General Motors”, 2009, What’s good for GM section, par. 1) Because GM was such a large portion of the U.S. economy during the 1950’s, if difficult...
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...Genetically Modified Foods (or GM foods) are produced from organisms in which specific changes are introduced into their DNA through the methods of genetic engineering. Genetically Modified crops are available commercially since 1994. Majority of the gene modification of foods have primarily focused on cash crops which are in high demand such as soybean, corn, canola, and cotton seed oil. These crops have been engineered for resistance to pathogens and herbicides and better nutrient profiles (Wikipedia). According to an article by author Robert Shields, more than 26 percent of the cotton, 40 percent of the soybean acreage in the US was planted with GM crops containing gene for herbicide resistance by the year 1998. The application of Agri-biotechnology has increased by 60 fold since 1996 and by 2015 it is predicted that in about 40 countries more than 200 million hectares of lands will be planted by biotech crops (Maghari 1). The invention of agricultural biotechnology has caused social and ethical contradictions. There are extensive debates active in scientific circles as to how modern biotechnology can be used for planting high quality of high yield crops to meet the challenge of feeding the ever increasing population while protecting the ecosystem and human health. Genetically Modified Foods (GM Foods) have made a big splatter in the news lately. Environmental organizations and public interest groups have been actively protesting against GM foods for months. Recent controversial...
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...……….…p 4 Extenal Factors……….…..…………………………..……….………………….p 5 III - Discuss the latest stage of the new (smaller) GM……………….………...p 6 What are the characterisics of the new GM?..………………………………...…p 6 Some encouraging signs of recovery………………………………………....….p 9 Threats regarding GM’s trials to regain its golden past………………………….p 11 Summary and Observations……………………………………………………...p 13 IV - With a majority government ownership, what operational and management challenges might GM’s management confront when trying to regain its golden past?…….………………………………….………..p 14 Operational Challenges..………………………………………………………….p 14 Management Challenges………………………………………………………….p 15 Summary and Observations………………………………………………………p 16 V - Critically Analyse Whether it was GM’s Failure or its Competitors’ enormous success in cost savings and innovation that brought about GM’s demise…………………………..…...….……………………..…….….….p 17 Cost Savings - a poorly designed cost structure……...………………………….p 17 Innovation Processes…………….…………..…………………………………..p 18 Summary and observations……………………………………………………...p 21 VI - Conclusion……………….……………………………………………….….p 22 VII - References……………………………………………………….……….....p 23 2 I - Introduction General Motors (GM) is an American multinational which was founded by William Durant in 1908. It is known as one of the world’s largest auto manufacturers. GM employs 209,000 people around the world and produces...
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...industry. But there are several specific reasons why GM found China attractive and as such aggressively pursued. The first, obvious reason is the high population of the country that is currently underserved from an automobile perspective. The country makes up 20% of the worlds’ population but only owns 1.5% of the worlds’ vehicles. The second reason is the high profit margin expected from the market. The Chinese automobile market had an average margin of 30%, while the global auto market was only 5%. The third reason is due to the limited existing competition. There was a limited mix of providers and competitors in the market – and they were not very strong. The final reason was the way the government managed the volume of new entrants. High tariffs and close management of how international corporations could engage meant that if GM could successfully enter the market, the competition would likely be manageable. General Motors took a joint venture approach with SAIC to enter the market, for reasons of benefit as well as government requirement – the latter reason having a bit more weight in the decision making process initially. In this agreement, the joint venture worked quite well across the companies and the Chinese Government for three main reasons. The first reason why it worked well was that there was significant, influential support at the most senior levels across all parties. The partnership had high-level SAIC and GM executive support in...
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...SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 1 9 9 4 ness o by Peter F. Drucker ot in a very long time-not, perhaps, since the late 1940s or early 1950s-have there been as many new major management techniques as there are today: downsizing, outsourcing, total quality management, economic value analysis, benchmarking, reengineering. Each is a powerful tool. But, with the exceptions of outsourcing and reengineering, these tools are designed primarily to do differently what is already being done. They are "how to do" tools. Yet "what to do" is increasingly becoming the central challenge facing managements, especially those of big companies that have enjoyed long-term success. The story is a familiar one: a company that was a superstar only yesterday finds itself stagnating and frustrated, in trouble and, often, in a seemingly unmanageable crisis. This phenomenon is by no means confined to the United States. It has become common in Japan and Germany, the Netherlands and France, Italy and Sweden. And it occurs just as often outside business-in labor unions, government agencies, hospitals, museums, and churches. In fact, it seems even less tractable in those areas. The root cause of nearly every one of these crises is not that things are being done poorly. It is not even that the wrong things are being done. Indeed, in most cases, the tight things are being done - but fruitlessly. What accounts for this apparent paradox? The assumptions on which the organization has been built and is being run no longer fit...
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