Power of One Ford

One World, One Plan “One Ford” covers the whole global enterprise, from product quality and fuel efficiency to manufacturing plants, corporate culture and the company balance sheet. Mulally has been preaching and promoting the plan as Job One since the day he arrived as something less than the first choice of then-Ford CEO and family scion Bill Ford. In many ways, “One Ford” is simply Mulally’s Boeing strategy transferred to a related transportation industry. When Boeing was reeling from a $2.6 billion annual loss in 1997, Mulally pinpointed the problem as inefficiencies in production, bad relationships with suppliers, unrealistic delivery dates—and management that deflected blame. That’s a classic parallel to what led Detroit to its nadir in 2008, and the solution Mulally applied corralled and focused management in very much the same way as his tough medicine at Ford. Mulally tends to make it all look easy, and his self-effacing manner is part of his charm. “We haven’t had to change a thing, that’s the real easy part,” he told us, reaching into his pocket and handing over a “One Ford” business card—it was even autographed. The card handoff is a ritual with everyone Mulally meets, because the plan is at heart so simple that its essence fits on a tiny square of cardboard—and it has his name on it. At its most basic level, “One Ford” is shorthand for reining in Ford’s global operations and getting them all working on the same agenda. Before Mulally, Ford’s overseas subsidiaries were semi-independent kingdoms that frequently duplicated effort. For example, Ford of Europe and Ford North America traditionally developed separate versions of the compact Ford Focus—aimed at similar customer needs and wants, but with almost no common components.