I copied my response to a previous post and made a new one, and really want to know how GM is going to solve their problems?


My question is when will the negative numbers stop? It is great and all that GM sold a bunch of cars with the employee pricing, but they did not turn a profit doing so. I do not see anything in their future lineup that would help them generate the losses they are incurring now. It is not like GM can up the prices of their vehicles to offset the losses. They need discount pricing just to move the current vehicles. It looks like serious union re-structuring of the contracts is the only way GM will survive? Unions tend to be hard headed and I do not know if GM can accomplish this. I just can't see them making it on new vehicle lineup alone. Market share numbers do little if they are in the red doing so. What other ways is GM thinking to overcome this huge loss per vehicle??

 

Less Union work - More overseas work. Sucks, but the Unions have done it to themselves...

 

To put this in overly simplistic terms I think GM needs to do two things to get back on the road to profit:

-Build truely high quality cars... don't skimp on materials or under-engineer ANYWHERE that would make the car break down more easily or feel cheaper to the customer.

-Price those truely high quality cars at prices low enough to get people to give them a second chance - this is most likely going to be priced at a loss, really.

Now with that said, they're obviously already doing the "price" part of the above 2 steps. Whether they've successfully implemented the building of cars that are good enough to convince people that their Toyotas and Hondas are not worth the money is the question that has still yet to be truely answered. Yes we have a bunch of GM fanboys on this site saying that they have, but as we know, hype and real world reality (the reaction of the other 99% of the world that's just going to buy whatever they like best and not just because they're a GM cheerleader), is the rest of the question.

I'm sure that there are a lot of people who regardless of price will still not buy a GM car right now because they feel that the low prices are a sign that GM products are cheaper (in quality) than ever. While I know that's certainly not the case, I'm just saying that there's a lot of "hidden" sales in this - people that are waiting for their friends and neighbors to own their 2005 GM vehicles for 2,3, maybe 5 or 6 years before they are convinced that GM really has stepped up to the plate and isn't just playing "The boy who cried wolf" yet again.

Then again, in all of this discussion, you know what baffles me? Chrysler? They've made some of the most notoriously crappy vehicles and cried wolf more times than I can count - even to the point of having to have the government bail them out, and now they aren't even truely domestic anymore... yet people still buy the hell out of those cars.

 

OK, my take, serious with a little bit of Friday quarterbacking tongue-in-cheek:

-Fire half the marketing department, replace them with designers and engineers the can and will build cars people want, as opposed to 'value and then spin engineering' them.

-Get people excited about the product through better advertisement. We're already seeing this in the new commercials (anybody miss the two dorks selling Malibus from the express check-out of the grocery store).

-motorsports and enthusiasts involvement: sponser tuner events and race series for your cars, like the old Neon Challenge, Mazda's Zoom-Zoom Live and NOPI events.

-More intelligent 'parts binning': in the Solstice, the HVAC controls are from a Hummer, the rear backup lamps from an Envoy, and the control stalks from another GM car. Example: I don't see why all GM cars couldn't have the same turn-signal and wiper stalks AS LONG AS THEY WERE DESIGNED RIGHT, which means design them to look and feel for a Caddy and put them in everything.

-Above all else, gotta get the union and health costs in line.

 

I think they should develop a nuclear missile program and launch a preemptive strike on all the other carmakers.

 

They have to get healthcare and labor costs down...you can nicke and dime expenses all day but if they don't touch the biggies they'll never get anywhere. And Ford proved you can't get profitable by cheaping out on the cars.

So GM has to put the money into product and try to cut fixed costs instead.

 

We have a winner...
Why do you think we haven't seen a CTC yet, or a Camaro, or Velite? Because they secretly diverted resources to this project under the guise of getting the GMT-900s out sooner.

 

l

 

Reduce overhead by lowering the retiree healthcare costs. Keep new products coming. Remain focused on the basic ideas of the brands. Don't keep changing what things are supposed to be.

The reason that EVERYONE knows what a Porche is, except for Cayanne, is that it has remained the same since its inception. Conservative styled good performing cars with nice interiors, rear engined and available in coupe and convertible body styles.

Produce exciting products. Keep quality up and tell people about it.

The BIGGEST POINT IS THIS:

Don't let your dealers try to be the Walmart of auto sales in their town.
All you ever hear about is how they have the best deal, the lowest prices.

Get them to talk about the product not the price. Get them to talk about quality and customer service. Get them to get people excited about more than the lowest price.

 

Where's Buickman when you need him???

 

Hell if they launched on the media giants instead, I'd be happy with that!

 

I must be the only one who thinks the cars have been marketed pretty well recently. Good corvette commercials, good cobalt commercials, good GTO commercials, good solstice/G6 commercials.

What more would you folks like out of the marketing department? I'm just curious.

 

Im not supposed to speak of this, but lets just say its already in the pipes...

 

i agree. remember the first Cobalt commercials with it "playing" with Vette. those got alot of peoples attention.

would be nice to see them go after the imports more with MPG reports and such, but they've been doing a good job recently.

 

I didn't read anything else here, but I thought i'd comment on this first. How do they do this without raising prices? Of course the way to sell a million cars is to make a $45k car and price it in the low $20k's.