These include strengths in smaller car innovation, design and engineering. Indeed as an Adjunct Professor at the newly established Solbridge International Business School, Woo-Sung University, Daejeon, this writer is keen to watch how GM integrates Korean expertise in fuel efficiency with excellent American marketing.
In the mind of the American consumer, what is most crucial, now, is in realizing dramatic cost savings for daily living. Cheap transportation is essential for moving around. But many families are strapped with financial difficulties as a consequence of the subprime crisis. Merely
providing a sub-compact will not turn GM around. For, there
are already in the market equally powerful solutions to car
owner's search for cheap transportation: for example, Indian
`Tata Nano' and Chinese `Cherry Tigo'.
With
the spiraling oil price at $4 per gallon, nobody wants to
be caught with a guzzler. The central issues for the three
big in the US are in how fast, appropriate and timely are
the solutions they can provide to the American car owner. As
shown in Figure 1, the Korean-reinforced GM still faces three-cornered
fights from the Japanese, and in the future, Chinese and Indian
auto-makers. Perhaps, the secret lies in forging sustainable
joint ventures with the pragmatic Chinese as well as able
Indian.Let
us take a deep, long and hard look at GM as a corporate entity,
at the sum total of what made GM `GM' over these decades:
the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and now the 2000s. The motto
that emerges is very American: `never say die', a fight-back
mentality. This can be expected from historically America's
best automobile manufacturer. For no product, maybe blue jeans,
can rival the automobile as being so uniquely American.
|
