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Overview and Analysis of General Motors

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Overview and Analysis of General Motors
OVERVIEW AND ANALYSIS OF GENERAL MOTORS

"General Motors has no bad years, only good years and better years" (Sloan, 1972). This mantra established in 1950 by former GM president Harlow H. Curtice may have been true at one point, but is called into question today by many, including Wall Street.

By many standards, General Motors is an extremely successful company, though an analysis of the corporation today uncovers many troubling issues. GM is and has been the world 's leader in automotive sales since 1931. (GM Website, 2004) By any corporate measurements, the company is a behemoth, operating across the globe with a 15% share of the world 's automobile market. The company also houses one of the world 's leading financial services companies, GMAC (GM Website, 2004). Though this giant company reports as a single entity, its two businesses are well separated. Our analysis will focus primarily on the automotive division.

The history of the automotive division is a novel one, spanning almost a hundred years with the incorporation of GM in 1908. William Durant, an innovative genius, founded the company by quickly joining together several leading car companies including Buick, Cadillac, and Oldsmobile. Durant 's vision, however, was plagued by details and the legacy he passed on to future CEO 's was far from perfect. Alfred Sloan stated it best when he said, "General Motorshad then the makings of a great enterprise. But it was... unintegrated... uncoordinated; the expenditures... were terrific --some of them not to bring a return for a long time, if ever-- and they went up, and the cash went down. General Motors was heading for a crisis."(Sloan, p18) Durant 's actions over 90 years ago set GM on its path, and led to both its huge success and current heartache. General Motors has always been a banding of "autonomous brands" leading to great invention, yet large duplication. As a former GM executive described, the advent of global competition after the 1970s


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