While developing a strategy, a company no longer considers each supplier, customer or competitor as enemies who will undermine its immediate benefits. Automakers around the world now share this vision, which is why they have completely changed the nature of their relationships with their suppliers, subcontractors and suppliers.
These relationships are the key to success in achieving the quality standards of Japanese companies. Managing a business no longer involves fully controlling all its activities. Strategic management must evolve to successfully combine competition and cooperation in a single approach. According to Bernard Garrette, this new concept could be called co-opetition.
Today, around 70% of agreements between competitors are built on this model. While cooperation between companies is not a recent phenomenon, there has been an explosion of alliances since the 80s. Existing alliances, however, have characteristics that distinguish them from traditional forms of cooperation: they are characterized by the depth and ambiguity of relations between allies.
The depth of the relationships can be illustrated by the fact that companies are cooperating more and more often on projects of common products and common technology, while more traditional forms of cooperation were associated with the transfer of technology, licenses, or multi-nationalization through traditional joint-ventures.
The ambiguous relationship between allies that comes from the increasing cooperation between competitors normally destined to clash, will be illustrated in this study by analyzing the co-FORD PSA, part of the development strategy of the Ford group. The group's business plan can be summarized in one sentence: "to become the global benchmark in products and services related to automobiles." This strategic move puts the consumer firmly at the heart of the strategy.
In the last few years, Ford's whole ideology has become consumer-centric through three concepts: A vision: "to become the world standard of automotive services"; a mission focused on providing products and services dedicated to improving the lives of everyday consumers; Value: "the customer is number 1 '.
In order to respect the value of "customer is top priority", the group adopts a strategy, involving the potential and capabilities of all employees. According to Jacques Nasser, "employees satisfy customers, and satisfied customers in turn reward shareholders."
In addition, the company directs its policy to reduce costs by being more efficient, creating synergies in research and development and cleaning up its production.
• A strategic axis with four luxury brands
For a time, the FMC has remained somewhat outside of market expectations, at least in Europe. The steps of negotiation and acquisition of Volvo in 2008 provide proof of same. Indeed, as we saw in the section on industry, the automotive market is divided into six segments ranging from small cars to large luxury sedans. It is this last segment in evolution where Ford wanted to develop greater capacity and expand its offering.
So today, the group sets up Premier Automotive Group (PAG) which includes four brands: Lincoln, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Volvo. This is in tandem with the strategy of Ford since it is primarily involved in meeting the expectations of consumers.
Tags: Lincoln, Aston Martin, Jaguar and Volvo, Premier Automotive Group, co-opetition, Strategy and organization of the Ford group
[...] The Ford group, in recent years, have been moving towards a policy of reducing costs. However, the partnership has advantages in terms of costs. Indeed, the pooling of resources of both partners can reduce costs. Then a business, even a large scale one, may be frustrated with competition that is very responsive. This is exactly the case Ford found itself in with the massive development with diesel engine technology. The partnership strategy between Ford and PSA allowed both groups to increase their skills to meet new challenges together. [...]
[...] We must then use all the resourcefulness of the subsidiaries to up the production. In case of excess inventory of a product, bonuses are given to dealers to get them to sell this model. E If the production does not fit the market, the role of the subsidiaries is to adapt the production market. It is far from the just in time (JIT) concept. We have to analyze synthetically the operation of the Ford group. It should now consider how the structure of an organization influences their choices in development policy. III. [...]
[...] To achieve this objective, several strategies were available to the Ford group. ♣ Development strategies To grow, the company may use two types of growth: ⎫ Organic growth, which is the creation of new capacity in the business such as the creation of a new assembly line for Airbus Aerospace. ⎫ External growth implies a relationship between companies and causes a transfer of existing assets of an actor to another. Organic growth, even if it has advantages in terms of strengthening the corporate culture or in terms of valuation experience, was still a dangerous direction for Ford. [...]
[...] However, this cooperation would probably not have occurred if the PSA Peugeot Citroën had not woken up to the realization of the benefits of such a partnership. To understand the group's interest, in part, we just have to divert our attention to the French group's offices abroad. In fact, PSA is a large French group operating mainly in Europe and South America for four years. Yet in a globalized and highly competitive automobile market, it was in the interest of PSA to conquer the great America. [...]
[...] The difficulties faced by the Group in the European market show that the management of costs within an organization is critical to proper functioning. Another advantage that can arise from this type of structure is the granting of autonomy to the various divisions so that they are reactive. We must therefore recognize the characteristics of the various markets the Group operates in so that there is no or minimal clash between the domestic culture of the host market and the American culture of the automobile giant. [...]
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