De Lorenzo does not have a clue about organizational structure or chooses not to read or talk to people in the industry about GM in particular. Or more likely chooses not to listen. There is one person on this board that I know of that if he chooses can verify what I am saying.

Since the John F. Smith was CEO GM's mantra has been "Run Common Run Lean." This refers to the multiple reorgs of Manufacturing, Engineering, VSSM etc. that have taken place over the years. These reorgs consolidated many into one NA operation. It was not many years ago when each division had its own sales and service staff and now there is one. The same goes for engineering, etc. Nothing is ever perfect or stagnant but GM has made great progress in simplifing their org chart over the years and it is very lean.

The UAW job losses make the press, but GM has been downsizing for years now. White collar buyout, selective layoffs of non performers, huge scale down of their contract staff.

If I remember correctly, GM has less white collar staff than Ford. This is more BS from DeLorenzo trying to scam the public into thinking he is an expert auto industry analyst so that he can sell his bogus surveys on his website and get quoted in AP articles. He is no different then the author of the imfamous 20 Points.

As for marketing and advertising, 75% of it is a waste of money. There are very few marketing campaigns that actually are effective. The only two that I can think off the top of head as the best in recent years have been "Zero Percent" and "Employee Discount." And I base that on sales results.

The best advertising is seeing the product on the road or "THE DEAL".

 

This is true, and other than the ever-so-slightly amusing Tacoma ads earlier this year, I'm hard-pressed to think of a memerable Toyota advertising campaign. I think it's time for everyone in the auto industry to be honest with themselves and accept the fact that a 30-second TV spot or full-page print ad is usually a waste of money.

I lack deep knowledge of the inner workings of GM, but I think it's safe to say that they're still organized like a company that's far bigger than market share would dictate. Could GM gain 35% of the market, long-term? Maybe, but it'd take a far larger investment in new product than they're making right now (this would have to include attracting and keeping the very best people that the engineering world has to offer). To do so would go far beyond any notions of being "good enough"; "far superior" would need to be the words used to describe every single product. Otherwise, yea, they're probably doomed to grab about 20% of a market that's becoming fragmented, and even at their current share of perhaps 25%, they've got a lot of idled plants and workers that are costing them money.

 

Try this one: "I love what you do for me! Toyota!"

Maybe you're looking for something more current, but advertising can be a big hit and carry a company with it. It just misses a lot more than it hits.

 

Agreed, as they are done TODAY. If they actually had content about the car and side-by-side comparisons showing the superiority of the product (rather than stupid "branding" imagery and ZERO content), they could go a long way to re-establishing GM as a contender in the market.

Show imagery of new GM interiors beside the competition.

Show mileage beside the competition.

Show all the Japanese makes that GM long-term durability is superior to.

Compare prices.

On the performance side, show GM cars beating the crap out of the competition, any way you want to measure.

SHOW PEOPLE THINGS ARE DIFFERENT. Branding doesn't do this. And it's time to go far, far beyond branding. Another one of my employees just bought an RSX-S without ever considering the Cobalt SS. Why? Because he didn't know that GM made a competing car!

 

evok, I agree.

It's very easy to say "GM has too many Divisions!"

The HARD part is this:

HOW do you get rid of them? Anyone want to take a guess at how much it cost to close down Oldsmobile?

It isn't as easy as saying...OK.....we're gonna close down a Division and lay people off or deploy them somewhere else........

See........there's a problem. There are dealers out there. GM (and any other manufacturer) has a Sales and Service Agreement.....and you just can't say to the dealer "OK, Mr. Dealer....we don't like Division X anymore...so on, say, June 1, we're not gonna build any more cars (or trucks) for you.

To do that would mean GM....or any manufacturer...would have to pay a lot of money to each dealer....then there are the leases on the buildings that the dealerships occupy............

Now.....I'm not saying that I don't agree with some of what he says......but I think his rant is based on simple thoughts........invariably in business today, nothing is quite that simple.

 

If the divisions put out something other then clones of each other they make complete sense. GM in the 50's and 60's had the right idea of individualism. People were not so much GM loyal as Pontiac, Chevy, caddy, etc. GM cut out the one thing that made people brand loyal to these divisions to save money. If we could go back to that semi independent thinking while still tapping the corporate parts bin no divisions would be redundant.

 

True, but even if they don't close down divisions, there are still too many makes and models. Why does every division have to be a full line division?

*Why is the Vibe a pontiac?
*Why does pontiac need the Torrent?
*Why doesn't pontiac have a car like the Cobalt?
*Why are there 4 GM minivans? Why does Pontiac need one?
*Why are all the buick models so similar?
*Why are there like 6 or 7 itterations of the trailblazer?
*do GMC, Chevy, and Cadillac need basically the same SUVs?


...food for thought...

 

Well, again, I'm not so sure it's that simple. The world changed....and GM didn't.....for too long. In the 50s and 60s, tell me what foreign cars a buyer really had a choice of.....Toyota? not anywhere, really other than the west coast. Nissan? It was Datsun....again, west coast. Honda? They built motorcycles until the early 70s...and really didn't come out with a real car until mid-seventies.......so there was a hierarcy.......as Alfred Sloan put it ".....a car for every purse and every purpose....." If you really think about it, the Divisions had their own unique styling (even tho they shared basic bodies) until the A cars of the early 80s....(Celebrity etc) and J cars (Cavalier)....and the world, it was a changing.......and you may recall that GM and Ford and Chrysler were on the skids.......

Could it have been changed? Well, looking at it from this end, perhaps......looking at it from the mid 70s perspective, I'm not so sure.

 

ummmm......go look at what Mark LaNeve is talking about in realigning the Divisions.

Further, you seem to speak with forked tongue.......you ask "Why does Pontiac need a Torrent, and then the next sentence is "Why doesn't Pontiac have a car like the Cobalt?".....that, to me, does not make sense.

The Vibe fit into where Pontiac was headed several years back....when the intent was for Pontiac to have a full product line. That is not the case anymore. There will not be 4 different Mini-vans within GM very shortly.
As to Buick Models being very similar.......OK, I'm clueless to this one........

>Ranier -- TrailBlazer based......don't think you'll see it much longer
>Rendezvous --- very successful for Buick.....makes sense.......in my opinion
>Terrazza...see above comment about Mini vans
>LaCrosse.....premium midsized sedan....
>Lucerne......premium full sized sedan...replacing LeSabre and Park Ave.....

.......so.......which vehicles are you talking about?

Now.....and this is my opinion only.....and I don't have a lot of the facts.....but it's my sense that when Pontiac and Buick are dualled within a dealership, there will be a line of cars that do not overlap.....such as....there is a new Lucerne.....but the Bonneville goes bye bye after 2005.....

 

There's still the Grand Prix and LeCrosse, though.

I KNOW I'm in the minority peanut gallery here, but I don't mind the Pontiac Vibe.

Terrazza as well as the upcoming Torrent are vehicles that aren't needed. Ditto a version of the Cobalt as well IMO.

All the same, glad to see the proliferation of minivans coming to an end. I'm guessing the recent expansion of the minivan is from the old management?

 

I completely agree with you. I think that Autoextremist is 90% wrong. GM's problems began in the 1970s when it began dismantling the competition between what were then essentially five different car companies with their own engines. Rather than let the weaker companies go bankrupt they propped them up, eventually amalgamating them into one big car company with five brand names.

That's when it went downhill. Instead of thoroughly addressing the quality issues, the dealers ripping off customers, bad warranty coverage ad nauseum, they just pretended they were cleaning up and carried on as if Toyota would never wipe them out.

Product, product, product. That's what's wrong with GM. The styling's bland, the 5-year reliability barely average, and they just don't have any cutting edge. Why? Because they don't listen to their customers. If they had, they would have a 200,000 unit selling F-body before Ford built the Mustang. Instead we have "new" Buicks and Pontiacs this year that resemble the last Ford Taurus that was a sales disaster.

Autoextremist seems to want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Any good ship engineer will tell you that with any new ship you end up with twice the problems of the old one. Change is good, but change in moderation. I don't like GM's executive management structure. It is too prone to mediocrity due to conservative attitudes and boardroom bickering (at least from what I have heard and seen).

Cadillac is successful partly because it has been allowed to separate itself from the pack at GM. The other divisions seem to have been meddled with to death. Anyway, the problem can be fixed. But it won't happen if people are going to sit around in denial. I heard one GM exec say "We have to remember that we're in the Arts and Entertainment business here". That's true, but the entertainment wears off with the first repair bill. Build reliable, stylish cars that stay out of the shop for at least 5 years. That's the key.

 

The answer is simple...

DEALERS!

Dealers have FAR too much control over GM's product portfolio... GM tries to go one direction, and the dealers cry about not staying the old course, so GM appeases them with a rebadge..

I disagree whole heartedly with Peter's article (The Autoextremeist)

GM has far, FAR too many 'structural' pressures and effect on it's product planning and THAT should be addressed before ANY market share is deliberately conceeded to competitors.

Why does GM have 4 rebadged minivans? To keep capacity at Doraville to appease the UAW. Why does GM have both the Canyon and the Colorado? Because the GMC dealers got jealous (Eventhough GMC is pulling killer numbers off of GMT800 right now) Why does GM have 7 GMT360s? To get revenue up to support the monumental healthcare costs.

Why in God's name should GM DELIBERATELY forfeit ground in the market, ground that they'll probably never gain back, to chance everything on a whimsical plan that fewer models means more $$$ (When in reality, fewer models will probably mean less $$$) Overhead is where profit is being eaten up at GM, not market share.

GM needs to continue to cut it's cost structure... The UAW needs to give concessions (It's not 1970 anymore) Healthcare needs to be addressed on a national level. Capacity needs to be reduced and yes, models need to be trimmed, not divisions, and not half of the company.

Why handicap the company's profit source to try and pay the bills... Besides, does anyone here really think the media and import biased American is going to give GM a fair shake anyway? Marketing alone WILL NOT change perceptions, it takes product as well and LOTS of it.

P.S. This article by Peter runs completely counter to one he wrote about 2 months ago justifying why both Pontiac and Buick should co-exist.. So which is it Peter?

 

Why do people take Mr. DeLorenzo seriously. Has anyone seen his site? Soooo- non professional. It looks like it was done by two stoners in the back of web design 101 class.
People don't take him seriously, he's a consultant for Chrysler. This is the same guy who was on Wind Tunnel one time saying that Toyota was going to be in Nextel Cup in 06 and that the Dodge Charger was a "good looking car".

 

Yeah I don't agree with him on this one , but the other article was good!