Word: marketization
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Settling the strike--an arbitration hearing is scheduled for Wednesday over GM's claim that the walkouts in Flint are illegal--is to some extent the least of the company's problems. GM faces enormous challenges with its products, its market strategy, its international business and even its leadership. Many of GM's critics believe that the world's largest automaker needs another total makeover. That means dumping factories, jobs--even executives--not to mention junking some of the nameplates no longer needed in GM's shrinking empire...
Saturn's factory-floor democracy turned ornery as Detroit bean counters pushed to cut costs in this eroding market. For example, over the Fourth of July weekend, headquarters called Spring Hill to check on how many people were in the plant working on maintenance chores, accusing them of larding the payroll. "We're working on things, and they're calling down here saying we have too many people," gripes Mike Bennett, bargaining chairman of U.A.W. 1853. "You save a few hundred dollars in overtime, but you could lose millions down the road." If the line goes down, the dollars mount...
...torn between such scattershot cost cutting and developing a long-term strategy that will put it back on the high road. At its core, GM still has too many models (56), too many North American assembly plants (29) and too many workers (220,000) to support its U.S. market share, which has declined from 35% in the early 1990s to 31.1% in 1997. A buoyant North American economy cushioned the pain of losing share--the company earned $6.7 billion last year--but has masked the severity of the company's strategic woes. Last week a report issued in Detroit...
Girsky thinks the company needs to junk 27 models to eliminate redundancy and stop competing with itself. Take the Chevrolet Camaro and Pontiac Firebird. In their heyday, the sporty siblings divided up a broad and profitable market of muscle-car enthusiasts. These days, though, muscle mania has waned, and the pair is left slugging it out in a narrowing segment. GM execs may want to keep at least one of the offerings to compete with the popular Ford Mustang, but they are faced with a dilemma: both cars are built in the same plant in Quebec, and killing one would...
...running a brilliant anti-p.r. campaign for a sport that already was too long and too slow. "They've got to address their own house," says Fay Vincent, baseball's last real commissioner, who was fired in 1992 by owners who wanted more control. "They've got to market the game, move it back into the inner city, bring in blacks and Hispanics," he says. "All this is going to take 15 years. The past five years have been basically lost...