Speech – Ceo of Ford Motor Company
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Good morning ladies and gentlemen. My name is Alan Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company. We are at an extremely important point in the future of our company. We are currently trying to rebound from one of the worst fiscal years in Fords history (2006). We have a vehicle that is a premier example of what our company can produce in the interest of fuel economy and the ecological footprint of motor vehicles in North America. The Ford Fiesta Diesel is taking the European market by storm and we needed to decide if we were going to launch it in North America, launch it in another region of the world, launch it with modifications as a hybrid vehicle (gas/electric) in North America, launch same in another region of the world or simply continue selling it exclusively in the European market. We needed to take into consideration the North American attitude towards diesel fuel as most Americans have the long standing, no longer accurate, impression that it is noisy, smoky and smelly. We also needed to consider the costs involved with either importing these vehicles from our overseas facilitity, the cost to open a new plant here in North America or the cost to modify a current plant to add the Fiesta to the product line. It is my intention to show you that my decision to bring the Fiesta to North American soil is a valid one for our financial health, our image and for the future of our ecological footprint. Ford will no longer be left playing catch up in an industry we invented, and have dominated in, for the majority of the company’s life. My intent is to bring in a “turnaround specialist” as either an interim manager or consultant. I believe we need an outsider to bring some objectivity and a fresh point of view. Senior management will develop a restructuring plan and present it to the board of directors, management and employees. I am including a basic plan that we can refine and update as circumstances dictate. We will investigate the need for restructuring debts or acquiring bridge loans to finance the restructuring costs. We are going to prune less profitable units from the product line and increase financial and employee involvement with the most profitable ones as well as get back to our core business of supplying North America with innovative, cutting edge automobiles that are ecologically friendly, competitively priced and Ford made!
KEY ASSUMPTIONS
Ford will be able to continue cutting our operational expenses as we did in 2007
Ford will continue to enjoy the upswing in our gross profit as we have seen the economy rebounding from the 2006 budget year
Fuel costs will continue to rise
Concern over fuel availability and cost will have an increasing impact on automobile buyers decisions