FORD OF GERMANY

Ford of Germany

Table of Contents

Introduction3

Context4

Ford of Germany5

Ford Motor Company, Fordism & Ford of Germany6

Ford of Germany's Fundamental Approach to Business Management7

After-Sales Services in Ford of Germany7

Significance of Ford of Germany for Ford Motor Company8

From Ford of Germany & Ford of Britain to Ford of Europe and Onwards9

Ford of Germany and World War Two11

Conclusions12

References14

Ford of Germany

Introduction

Ford is known for an approach towards international operations that is essentially based on decentralization of authority. Fords operations are global and the management of this global enterprise is maintained by developing subsidiaries. Ford of Germany, otherwise also known as Ford of Germany is a German subsidiary that is owned by the Ford Motor Company.

This report will attempt to elaborate on the operations and business management approach of Ford of Germany as a subsidiary of the Ford Motor Company. In order to do so adequately, the discussion will not only give specific attention to the operations, strategies and dynamics of Ford of Germany, but also strive to explore the manner in which the Ford Motor Company exercises authority over Ford of Germany. This will help to acquire an insight into the performance of Ford of Germany and the delegation of authority in Ford's globally expansive operations.

In order to understand Ford's German operations, it is critically imperative to begin by establishing an adequate context constituting the history of Ford's German operations and changes that have taken place in these operations to bring them to the position in which they stand today. In order to do so effectively, it is imperative to acknowledge that Ford's global operations can be best understood through the development of models. This is because the success of vehicle models seems to have a major impact on developments in Ford's global corporate structure. As Ford introduces models globally, the fine print that highlights collaborations between different subsidiaries can be observed in the form of models introduced with identical names across different regions. In other cases, subsidiaries collaborate to produce models and release them with customized alterations that make the specific models ideal for their respective markets. In essence, the launch of new models serve as turning-points for an automotive giant such as Ford; and it is in the same perspective that this discussion explores Ford of Germany.

Context

Originally, the Ford Motor Company chose to engage in an approach towards international operations in which international operations were allowed to function as associated companies and a majority of these subsidiary's shares were owned by the Ford Motor Company's headquarter housed in Dearborn, Michigan (Holden, 2005; Fetzer, 2010; Al-Mashari, Zairi & Ginn, 2005). The remaining shares were given to local stakeholders.

Germany, falling in the Ford Motor Company's European subsidiary's region of consideration, was being catered to by operations based in the USSR until the beginning of the Second World War (Mount, 2011; Royal, 2009; Binder & Clegg, 2006). With the outbreak of the second world war, the scenario grew complicated as control of the shares owned by the local authorities were taken over by the German authorities ...