General Motors
General Motors
Leadership is one of the most important aspects and challenges a company faces which can influence the effectiveness or an organization. An organization counts on good leadership skills to direct and lead a company into performing and motivating to achieve attainable goals and produce income. According to the General Motors (2007) website, they are proud of their group affiliation of the Affinity Group which allows employees and management to link up and produce effective ideas to benefit the and influence change within the organization. General Motors (GM) has had opportunities in the past to take advantage of innovation when they formed a joint-venture with Toyota. Lead management did not fully support the new technological advances of Toyota and the plan failed. GM had yet another opportunity with the purchase of Saturn to market a fresh idea in the vehicle industry but soon abandoned the idea of discontinued funding mostly due to the jealousy that was produced by divisions of other brands of GM products such as Chrysler, Pontiac, Cadillac and Chevy to name a few. Again leadership got in the way of opening up the window of opportunity for the company. GM executives again missed the boat when they continued to build high profile, gas guzzling SUV vehicles and passed up the opportunity to take advantage of the fuel crisis and global warming by producing energy efficient, low emission vehicle like their competitors, Toyota. The lack of good financial decisions and poor leadership, GM failed to take advantage of restructuring at the first sight of the failing economy they may have been able to recover. GM has not only lost their crown of being the top car sales manufacturer to Toyota, they are now facing huge losses based on overproduction and high labor costs. To reduce costs, GM has now had to layoff employees and reduce inventory. “As a result, its inventory at the end of 2008 stood at 892,000 vehicles, a 4% reduction from previous
Leadership is one of the most important aspects and challenges a company faces which can influence the effectiveness or an organization. An organization counts on good leadership skills to direct and lead a company into performing and motivating to achieve attainable goals and produce income. According to the General Motors (2007) website, they are proud of their group affiliation of the Affinity Group which allows employees and management to link up and produce effective ideas to benefit the and influence change within the organization. General Motors (GM) has had opportunities in the past to take advantage of innovation when they formed a joint-venture with Toyota. Lead management did not fully support the new technological advances of Toyota and the plan failed. GM had yet another opportunity with the purchase of Saturn to market a fresh idea in the vehicle industry but soon abandoned the idea of discontinued funding mostly due to the jealousy that was produced by divisions of other brands of GM products such as Chrysler, Pontiac, Cadillac and Chevy to name a few. Again leadership got in the way of opening up the window of opportunity for the company. GM executives again missed the boat when they continued to build high profile, gas guzzling SUV vehicles and passed up the opportunity to take advantage of the fuel crisis and global warming by producing energy efficient, low emission vehicle like their competitors, Toyota. The lack of good financial decisions and poor leadership, GM failed to take advantage of restructuring at the first sight of the failing economy they may have been able to recover. GM has not only lost their crown of being the top car sales manufacturer to Toyota, they are now facing huge losses based on overproduction and high labor costs. To reduce costs, GM has now had to layoff employees and reduce inventory. “As a result, its inventory at the end of 2008 stood at 892,000 vehicles, a 4% reduction from previous
References: Bensinger, K. (2009, January 22). Toyota overtakes GM in 2008 sales. Retrieved February 12, 2009 from http://www.latimes.com/classified/automotive/highway1/la-fi-gm22-2009jan22,0,7213660.story General Motors. (2007). Retrieved on February 12, 2009 from http://www.gm.com/corporate/responsibility/diversity/employee_resource_network.jsp