| Tuesday, January 16, 2007 |
17:19 - What Would Jobs Drive?
http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/?p=2966
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Ahh, I love it when I can't decide which category to file something under. In this case it's The Truth About Cars' William C. Montgomery writing a response to an article in Yahoo Finance positing that the way the domestic automakers should save themselves is by imitating Apple.
Montgomery knows his Macs; his response points are spot-on:
Apple Lesson Number 1: Revolution, not evolution
When Steve Jobs returned to ailing Apple, he cut product lines into three core offerings, cut hardware licensing agreements with third party vendors, replaced Macintosh’s Operating System and orchestrated the ouster of the company’s CEO. AFTER Jobs consolidated power, stopped the bleeding and banked some cash, the company expanded its product line. Apple was then in a position to take a chance on a “game-changing technology” like the iPod.
“GM expects the Chevrolet Volt to be a breakthrough product.” Uh, I don't think so. Although GM has no shortage of engineering expertise, GM is far too sick to realize anything even half this ambitious. Unless the company transforms itself, it will not survive to see its electric cars wean Americans from Arab oil.
Detroit’s pattern of gradual tweaks to the status quo will not rescue the languishing leviathans. They must cut or sell superfluous brands, focus product lines, restructure supply and labor contracts, and defenestrate the senior managers whose neglect drove these once great companies into the ground.
That's only the first of four bullet points. The rest are equally good.
The automakers could indeed benefit from learning the lessons Apple teaches. So could a lot of industries. The problem is that everybody always seems to misinterpret what those lessons are, thinking they "get it" when they're only halfway through their Jedi training. Which is exactly the attitude that gets them killed.
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Brian Tiemann
