FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Ford Motor Company



Table of Content

Introduction3

Ford Motor Company: Brands & Activities and Growth4

Ford Motor Company and Its Management11

Ford Motor Company: Its Background InformationError! Bookmark not defined.

Conclusion21

References24

Appendices25

Ford Motor Company

Introduction

The Ford Motor Company remains one of the world's major carmakers, but a series of challenges since 2000 have pushed it steadily down the rankings (Banham, 2002). In 2008, it slipped to the position of global #4 behind Volkswagen. As well as Ford itself [see Ford Brand Profile for more], the company's brands currently include North America's Lincoln and Mercury and Sweden's Volvo- A trio of British automobile marques - Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover - were sold in 2006 and 2007 and a year later the group relinquished its effective control of Japan's Mazda, although it retains a minority shareholding Advertising Age estimated global measured advertising expenditure of $2.9bn in 2007, making Ford the world's #6 advertiser. Including unmeasured media, the company declared its own advertising costs in 2008 to be $4.6bn. In the US, Advertising Age/TNS reported measured media expenditure of $1.0bn in 2008, out of an estimated total of $1.9bn. Biggest spending brands were Ford (measured spend $667m), Lincoln ($216m), Mercury ($167m), Volvo ($46m) and Sync ($38m). In France, TNS Media Intelligence/CB News estimated total advertising expenditure of E135m in 2008. In Germany, Nielsen Media Research estimated measured media spend of E112m in 2007. This paper discusses Ford Motor Company in a concise and comprehensive way.

Ford Motor Company: Macroeconomic Business Environment

The US automobile industry has been brought to its knees by two main factors. During 2007, the sharp spike in oil prices persuaded American buyers to abandon the sort of the fuel-hungry trucks in which Detroit had long specialised in favour of low-consumption runabouts, mainly offered by Asian competitors. Then, although oil prices began to fall, the worsening effects of the US credit squeeze led to a wave of home repossessions and job cuts, causing consumers to stop buying automobiles altogether. The result was an almost unprecedented slowdown in sales, with volumes falling by a third or more during the latter months of 2008. Ford was no less affected by this seismic change than rivals General Motors and Chrysler; however it was by that stage already in the later stages of an advanced restructuring initiated two years earlier as a result of a previous set of problems. This left it in a much stronger position than its two main competitors. So far, it has not needed to call upon the US government for financial assistance, although the current crisis is far from over. Unfortunately for Ford, the bankruptcy and restructuring of Ford's two main rivals leaves the company at something of a disadvantage, since unlike GM and Chrysler it must still labour under a heavy debt burden of almost $155bn without the benefit of a Chapter 11 spring clean.

Ford delivered a total of 5.5m vehicles worldwide in 2008, down by almost 16% - or more than 1m automobiles - on the previous ...