GM Tries to Sharpen Its Car Images Essay -- BTEC Business Marketing GC

GM Tries to Sharpen Its Car Images Executive Summary General Motors, the world’s largest vehicle manufacturer took the industry leadership from Ford Motors Company in 1931. With its customer oriented objective and significant marketing programs, GM protected its position since then. Starting from 1990, GM became industry’s biggest money loser in the U.S. market by tracking out of the road it always had been and forgetting how it became and protected its leadership for over 60 years. Top management moved slowly by taking important decisions, lost control over the divisions and did not stop the production of the dogs on time. GM also lost touch with its customers and dealerships, so, the well-respected brand name became a dog itself in consumers’ minds. After assigning a new CEO and top management team, GM tried to recover as soon as possible. To mend the broken brand, a new marketing manager, a brand guy himself was needed. Ron Zarella was transferred from Bausch & Lomb to change the image of GM products. Zarella took long and short-term decisions successfully and ended the arguments inside of the company. He changed marketing structure by creating brand manager positions to work with the services such as design team, public relations, customer satisfaction, sales, service and distribution. Five-Phase Vehicle Development Process was created, engineers and marketing groups from different brands combined to work with each other. As results of these innovations, GM was able to design new cars shorter; although still not shorter than its competitors, market its products more successfully and gained consumer confidence back again. Situation Analysis A. Environment Fast technological changes and increasing affordability changed consumer expectations in 90’s. Big, heavy cars had still market share but the cars which are smaller and have low gas mileage were stars for the Generation Y. Power doors, power windows, power steering and air conditioning became standards for all consumers which were found in luxury cars or offered as an extra in 70’s and 80’s. Starting from 1990; especially following the Gulf War, The U.S. economy started recovering after recessing in 80’s. The federal budget deficit was getting smaller, long-term interest rates were lower and U.S. businesses had equal cost of capital compared to their foreign competitors. Oil ... ...ing should work together as one body and help each other as possible as they can and the time for designing products should be shortened. For brand management positions, not only insiders but also outsiders should be installed to get new and fresh ideas. The teams containing brand managers and engineers from different divisions should be made up to share ideas and experience to solve the quality, production and distribution problems of every division. Consumer confidence can be gained back by changing products’ characteristics, smart pricing strategies by concentrating cost administration or cost management, training salespeople and dealerships in consumer friendly way, offering flexible financing solutions with promotions and, teach the consumer the benefits of the product. Summary and Conclusion GM can be successful in its profit-maximization and â€Å"A car for every purpose, a car for every pocketbook† objective by using these solutions. The company will have better operation, production design will be faster, employee participation and motivation will be high, customer oriented approach will be applied and protect its industry leader position against its competitors.