Word: gm
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...early 1960s GM was having trouble building small cars to compete with imports like the Volkswagen Beetle. Chevrolet's ill-fated Corvair, which Ralph Nader judged to be "unsafe at any speed," made few inroads against imports. Yet GM was lulled into complacency by the success of its Pontiac GTO and other trend-setting muscle cars. When buyers flocked to small cars during oil crises in the 1970s, GM's failure to produce a winning model was ominous. "They had become so arrogant and efficient at defining trends that when a fundamental shift took place, they failed to adapt," says...
...GM moved boldly under Roger B. Smith, chairman in the 1980s, but often in the wrong direction. Smith's stated aim was to gear up the company for the 21st century. Along the way, GM spent $70 billion on everything from industrial robots to the purchase of Hughes Aircraft and Perot's Electronic Data Systems. But despite the spending spree, GM's market share fell from 46% to 35% during the decade as consumers turned away from its unattractive products. Nor did GM have much success in transferring Hughes' electronic wizardry to auto assembly lines, or in using...
...Perhaps GM's crowning folly during the '80s was the reorganization of its North American operations into two clumsy megagroups. The plan gave responsibility for small cars to GM's Chevrolet, Pontiac and Canadian divisions, and handed large cars to the Buick, Oldsmobile and Cadillac units. While that may have seemed sensible at the time, it created a new level of bureaucracy sandwiched between the automaking divisions and GM's corporate headquarters. The results ranged from mass confusion to a proliferation of look-alike models. "Everything Roger Smith tried failed," says Womack. "The screwball capital investment, the screwball reorganization. Smith...
Smith's failures put Stempel in an awkward position when the latter took over GM at the start of the '90s. As Smith's handpicked heir apparent, Stempel had loyally seconded the chairman's plans. "Stempel always voted with Roger on everything," says a GM insider, "even though he used to tell me he knew things were wrong and disagreed." So even as Stempel went along with GM's wild ride through the Smith era, he learned the hazards of sweeping change...
That helped make Stempel wary of new directions when he became chairman, just as GM directors began calling for a major overhaul to fix the company. "We could never get a clear answer from him on anything," says a | disgruntled board member. "Everything got muddled and waffled. There was never a critical mass. He was just not up to it. The good news, to his credit, is that Bob finally did the right thing" when he resigned...