 |
||
|
|
||
| |||||||||||
Mass production culture Nearly a century ago, Henry Ford invented mass production and forever changed the way we live. As the industrial century awaits the new millenium, the company he founded is continuing to churn out cars: In 1996, the Ford Motor Company celebrated its 250-millionth vehicle. If you put all the Ford vehicles ever produced bumper to bumper, they'd circle the globe 30 times. Ford's road to prominence hasn't been without its potholes. The company suffered down years in the 1970s and 1980s, when strategic mistakes, indifferent cars, and Japanese competition caused sales at Ford (and the other two big American car companies, General Motors and Chrysler) to drop precipitously. But Ford has steadily driven its way back to the top with its successful Taurus and Escort models, and its mainstay F-series pickup. In December 1994, the company announced Ford 2000, a plan to consolidate the company's operations, and thus cut costs and boost profits. The plan took effect in January 1995, when Ford's North American and European operations were consolidated. Ford 2000 will ultimately bring the Ford global organization under one operational umbrella, which, company officials say, will eliminate duplication in product development, and create savings by permitting parts to be used interchangeably between models. Cutting costs Ford is also using computing might to cut its development costs. The cost of a crash simulation in 1985 was $60,000. In 1996, the cost, thanks to more sophisticated computer programs, had fallen to $200. By 2001, the company predicts it will cost $10 or less for each simulation. During initial car design, creating clay models used to take 12 people 12 weeks. Now, a single designer can take an idea to computer-animated fruition in just three weeks. Prototype part development time has been slashed from weeks to hours, and costs from $20,000 to $20. As part of Ford 2000, the company is seeking to cut overall development time from 33 months to 24 months. When Ford first began slogging through the early stages of the Ford 2000 reorganization, company officials said that they expected the program to begin to bear fruit in late 1997, 1998, and 1999. For once, a company forecast was correct. By the end of 1997, Ford was already enjoying record revenues. And the company reported record profit in 1998. Vigilant Ford finance officials will try to continue to cut costs, all toward the goal of cutting $11 billion in operating costs by the year 2000. Wall Street bankers and shareholders are happy, but Ford knows it must also keep customers and employees satisfied. Ford's cost-cutting has caused some resentment among workers. Business trips to Europe came under careful scrutiny, and longtime employees were implored to take early retirements and voluntary buyouts. Ford officials are currently drafting a generous employee buyout plan that will prevent prized talent from leaving the company while targeting for elimination underperforming/mediocre employees who have little chance of advancing within the corporation. New leadership and a new attitude Ford recently announced a new leadership team to succeed Alex Trotman once the chairman/CEO/president leaves in 2000. William Clay Ford, the great-grandson of Henry Ford, will serve as non-executive chairman while Jacques Nasser will take over as president and CEO. Industry analysts say Ford's clear line of succession will give the company a competitive edge over its rivals by ensuring future stability and a smooth transition once Trotman retires. The company is also looking into potentially lucrative emerging markets, particularly Asia. Ford entered Asia in earnest in 1994, targeting markets in China, India, Thailand, Vietnam, and Indonesia. Ford sells about 320,000 vehicles in the Asia-Pacific market annually -- accounting for only 2 percent of the region's 13.5 million sales. Ford and other U.S. automakers merely dabbled in those markets during the last 20 years, preferring to concentrate on keeping their domestic market shares strong. But with growing Asian middle classes and (until recently) booming Asian economies as enticement, all of the Big Three have plunged into the marketplaces of Asia. In June 2000, the company became one of the first manufacturing giants to announce its plans to offer full medical, dental and prescription drug benefits for same-sex partners of their hourly and salaried employees. The expanded coverage will be available starting August 1, 2000. Out to be the best In 1999, Ford aggressively expanded into other businesses. Hoping to enter the used-parts business, Ford began by purchasing Kwik-Fit, Europe's largest maintenance and light-repair chain. It plans to introduce such a chain in the U.S. within the next few years, and would emphasize an environmentally-friendly and service-oriented business approach. A splashier step was Ford's $6.5 billion acquisition of Sweden's AB Volvo car business, which will mean additional luxury and lightweight aluminum vehicle lines for Ford, and should increase business substantially in Europe, where the company had struggled somewhat. Ford and Volvo's combined revenues will bring Ford nose-to-nose with General Motors for the title as the world's top car manufacturer. Innovation Ford's e-commerce initiatives took a major leap in September 1999 when the company announced a joint venture with Microsoft that would allow the car company to build vehicles specifically to meet online orders. This in turn should allow Ford to streamline its inventory and distribution network. Local dealers would still complete the sales but they are growing increasingly wary of becoming obsolete. Ford took another step towards expanding its internet operations in November 1999, when it partnered with Priceline to sell automobiles online. Visitors to Ford's web site will be referred to the Priceline site, where they can view invoice prices and mete out a transaction with a local dealer via the Internet. Initially the service will be offered only in a few test markets, but plans for expansion are already in place.
Ford hires undergraduates primarily through the Ford College Graduate Program. Insiders estimate that about 100 to 200 recent college graduates are hired every year. While in years past, college graduates entered different fields such as engineering and finance, Ford has been moving toward a consolidation of the program as part of the Ford 2000 program. College graduates now are almost exclusively hired into product development teams, employees say. For MBAs, Ford hires primarily into a Financial Analyst program and the Marketing Leadership Program. Both programs hire about 10 to 15 full-time employees a year, insiders say. Full-time hires who are recruited on-campus generally have two interviews at their school, usually with current members of the program to which they are applying, and sometimes with HR personnel. Those who make that cut are then taken to Dearborn for a few days for an all-day interview with senior managers. "They put you up in a hotel, let you tour headquarters, tour a plant, feed you well, give you drinks, basically butter you up," reports one employee. During the Super Saturday, interviewees are split into groups of about five and matched up with a group of interviewers. Each interviewer in the group then interviews each candidate. Here's the catch: interviewers are told they can only hire two from their group (maybe three if there's an exceptionally strong group), insiders say, so interviewees are directly competing against each other. "It's sort of brutal," says one employee. Aside from that form of brutality, Ford's interviewing process is reportedly easygoing. "It was pretty chatty," says a financial analyst. "I didn't get any finance-related questions. They want to kind of pick your brain and know you're really interested in the job."
Clunker culture While Henry Ford's organizational genius sped up automobile production beyond anything imaginable at the turn of the century, his company has become something of a clunker as it approaches the millennium, according to employees. "There's a lot of e-mails, a huge approval chain," says one financial analyst. "You've got to get literally 15 to 20 people to sign off on one thing. It's ridiculous." "I would have to say it's pretty slow-moving and conservative," says a marketing employee. "I'm sure you could find pockets of rogue managers within the company that would be different, but for the most part, managers have been working at Ford since they left college (in some cases high school) and they do not have any knowledge of other industries." Some complaints from women One woman employee in marketing is slighty pessimistic when speaking of advancement opportunities at Ford: "I think advancement possibilities exist for women, but are they good? I would have to say that they probably would be better elsewhere." She elaborates: "Within the marketing area, there are several women who hold senior positions and I would say that your chances for advancement are pretty good. However, in the finance area, there are very few women in management positions and I would say that your chances are not as good." On the plus side, Ford employees have access to privately-owned childcare and elder care facilities on Ford land properties. As of 1997, the company had also endowed $6.4 million in scholarships for women and minorities in technical fields at 42 colleges. And, reports one insider, during the recent major management restructuring as part of Ford 2000, "women were treated pretty favorably" because the company was "acutely aware of a paucity" at the top. Great for finance With the history of the "whiz kids" backing them up, Ford has a great reputation when it comes to training its financial employees. "Ford Finance has a reputation as one of the top three financial programs around. It is telling that only two or three years after working in Ford Finance, many people go on to be controllers and CFOs of smaller companies," says one MBA intern. A financial analyst agrees, to an extent: "If you're looking at I-banking, most investment banks will say that Ford's a really good place to learn corporate banking. On the flip side, they still have a bias to hire from those who have experience in I-banking." However, because of the way the company is structured, Ford's marketing department is less highly regarded. "The marketing people have very little power in that company," according to one financial analyst. A former MBA marketing intern reports: "The finance people definitely take the lead in the company." Dearborn blues If you're considering Ford and have your eye on a corporate-level job in Dearborn, don't expect a cosmopolitan place to call home. "It's a morgue," reports one employee. Company representatives aren't so certain that Dearborn is such a grim place, however. Reports of swing-sets and $400,000 homes in the area bode well for quality of life. Yet Dearborn's rep continues to draw mixed reactions. "The Detroit area is decaying. Ford is a good company, but is impacted greatly by the local culture." "To be quite frank," says another, "the area that Ford is located in is fairly nasty." As far as social opportunities are concerned: "If you're young there and single, there's not a whole lot to choose from. It's pretty dead."
Recruiting ATS Ford Motor Co. P.O. Box 05201 Allen Park MI 48101-0520
DaimlerChrysler;General Motors;Honda;Hyundai;Toyota;Volvo More Company Profiles For more career information, go to Vault.com ©2000, Vault.com Inc
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
