1. INTRODUCTION
The Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903 by Henry Ford and the Ford Motor company becomes one of the top four largest companies in the world, following Toyota, General Motor and Volkswagen. Ford Motor is a global automotive leader and owns Lincoln and Mercury brands, Volvo Cars of Sweden, Jaguar and Land Rover, and a small capital contribution in Mazda of Japan and Astons Martin of England. Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 229,000 employees and about 90 plants worldwide, Ford Motor has been able to develop quickly because Ford introduced a best method to reduce low-price manufactured processes was assembly lines methods of Henry Ford. In during 1990s, Ford Motor sold a lot of vehicle in American market with low-price and low fuels price.
In the new world, as the face of demand for healthcare costs, fuels problems, falter economy, eroding market shares, declining sales and decreasing profit margins, Ford Motor apply a lot of new technology innovations to improve products and to occupy a stabilizing in their market shares and consumers such as Crossover Sport Utility Vehicles (SUVs), Hybrid electric powertrain technologies, etc
The Ford Motor Company has continued to gain news products and technology innovations to the market. Besides, they have been able to capture different segments of the market through their excellent differentiation strategies. Ford Motor also has developed products along with marketing strategy and loans strategy to draw the masses. What's more, key success factors are not only the product competences, competitive capabilities, and market achievements in the marketplace but also the brand global name position with innovation products, service quality, marketing strategy and efficient management which present following paragraphs
2. Factors that make Ford Motor success
2.1 Ford Motor focused on customer, quality and brand name
“The investments that we're making in styling and design, in fuel economy and safety and just overall environmental stewardship are also things that I think that the analysis that we take back from the customers would suggest is that's what a responsible company should be, and we at the Ford Motor Company are really taking that to heart and we're working on our execution and I think it's all paying off now as it shows up in the J.D. Power survey, in Consumer reports and it shows up in our own RDA GQRS survey, so it's just great to see that we're hitting on all cylinders as it relates to the consumers and the marketplace” .To understand the customer and make them satisfy is the vital factor of company because the customers are a big part of the game and they are powerful with the internet to spread their word. Therefore, a good customer service and understanding the buyers is one of the key to success of Ford Motor. Ford Motor knows that getting customers satisfy is better than anything else that's why they have business strategy success and they understand that customer is the best marketing method for other customer and promote the products. Ford Motor creates customer demands through viral marketing and customer finds these in Ford Motor products are the best way to Ford Motor service customer and become reliable products. Besides, Ford Motor not only spends money on advertising on television, newspaper, etc but also uses many different ways to create a buzz through the viral marketing. People share “cool things” in Youtube video, blog and socializing network ( Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, etc) to make it “cooler” and everybody knows about their products , they know what they want and be able to serve their when they have demand. For example, when the Ford Motor company shows a new the design and car features at Ford research center in Aachen, Germany. It is the most important scene in Automobile international exhibition. A lot of rumors of new product came before several weeks and it makes their products become cooler and makes everybody eager for new product. Furthermore, an announcement new product earlier forms circulation which helps company to promote a plan for selling, distributions, supplier and customer. Therefore, with build expectation and forecast, the company grows products base on brand name company and increase product investment. Or Ford Motor set up a team to participant Formula One (F1), Sports cars, Touring cars, etc to build a recognized brand name and everybody knows this brand name.
The Ford Motor Company focused on putting quality first by building vehicle that help protect occupants and prevent accidents. Year by year, Ford has made to improve quality through a renewed commitment that touches every aspect of the vehicle process – from design to manufacturing to product launch. The cumulative effect of these disciplined, global quality standards earned Ford a record-breaking year. According to 2008 U.S Global Quality Research Systems (GQRS), the quality of Ford brand vehicle soaring to the top of quality
2.2 Excellent Management Systems
The plan is summarized as “One Ford – One Team – One Plan – One Goal.” The proposal also covers the current business environment and moves on to present Ford's strategy to transform itself to better compete by developing safer, greener and even better quality vehicles
One Ford:
has a principle of one global company
One Team:
working together as a lean, global enterprise for automotive leadership. We have implemented and continue to implement a disciplined business process to regularly view our business environment, risks and opportunities
One plan:
aggressively restructure to operate at the current demand and changing model fix. Development of new products our customers want and value. Finance plan and improve balance sheet. Work together effectively as a team
The Ford Motor Company has built a management system to support information and relate customer including: reporting, trending, customer life-cycle analysis, etc of brand managers and agencies. Furthermore, Ford Motor applies a lot of methods to control working and product quality such as: Just in time (JIT), Total Quality Management (TQM), etc. Besides, to improve customer satisfaction, Ford Motor has a team to get variety of up-to-date customer scores through warranty information, survey results, financial records, etc to enhance management capability efficiently and effectively. Otherwise, Ford Motor also builds a flexible manufacturing to be able to respond quickly to change market demands, for example, engine architectures, manufacture facilities, and modern, etc.
In 2004, a flexible manufacture has features a number of new quality-control techniques, including:
State-of-the-art manufacturing equipment, with sophisticated controls that ensure with accuracy the quality of the vehicles being built
An onboard diagnostics and quality tracking system that scan vehicles to ensure there are no issues. If there is a problem, the vehicle will not be allowed to leave the plant
Improvements throughout the plant, such as station readiness checks and redesigned assembly racks, which have led to a reduction in damaged parts and an increase in employee morale
Ford Motor business strategy revolves around a continuous focus on customer satisfaction, advanced technology, top quality, humanism, and reliability-with the goal of becoming the top auto producer for the twenty-first century.
2.3 Ford Motor applies several new technologies.
In the modern world, fuel problems and environment are considering of many countries and need to contribute member of global society base on responsible corporate countries. As we have faced to global warming, greenhouse gas, healthcare costs, fuel prices, etc Ford Motor also introduces many products use more fuel-efficient, for instance:
+ Flexible fuel vehicles are designed to use ethanol fuel mixtures such as: E81 (85% ethanol and 15% gasoline) or E100 (neat hydrous ethanol) in Brazil
+ Ford Motor designed new cars use hydrogen fuel instead of gasoline fuel, for example: in 2008, Ford Escape hybrid shows at Los Angles
+ Ford Motor was third to the automobile market with hybrid electric vehicle and battery electric vehicle to market, for example: E85, Mercury Mariner, Mazda tribute, etc
Ford is increasing third quarter production by another 10,000 units to 495,000 units primarily to build additional Escape small utility vehicles and Focus small cars. Ford also announced plans to produce 570,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter, 33 percent higher than year-ago levels and 15 percent above the third quarter production plan. The increase represents higher production across a range of cars, crossovers and trucks.
Ford invested more than $130 million in state-of-the-art quality-control manufacturing tooling and technology to build the 2010 Ford Taurus and Ford Taurus SHO
The new 2010 Ford Taurus again earns a Top Safety Pick rating from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety
Taurus and Taurus SHO offer to focused technologies, and employees have been specially trained by Ford engineers to ensure each system is installed correctly and performing properly before vehicles leave the plant
The new Fiesta is the first in a series of fuel efficient new small cars developed through Ford's global product development process. It became the top-selling Ford European vehicle in January 2009 – the same month, it climbed to the number two spot for all cars in Europe, behind the Volkswagen Golf. The China market variant has been customized and tailor-made to suit Chinese consumer tastes and requirements.
Ford's pioneering SYNC system has been upgraded with a voice-activated Traffic, Directions and Information application that help customers save time, fuel and money while keeping their focus on driving
Innovations take the guesswork – and stress – out of parallel parking
Ford is helping forge the next frontier of safety with "active" crash-avoidance technologies that help customers avoid situations that could lead to accidents
Ford is building on its leading number of top crash safety ratings by introducing new, faster-deploying pressure-based side air bag technologies and by using more lightweight, high-strength materials
The full EPD ( Electrocoat Paint Deposition) simulation environment gives Ford engineers the opportunity to review design factors such as part geometry and access hole placement for potential coating problems. The tool can also predict electrocoat film thickness across a body-in-white, including for recessed regions
Ford-exclusive paint technology goes global
Ford's high-solids paint technology eliminates the need for process stages in a paint shop, replacing bulky, energy-consuming equipment with a simple, integrated booth
Process allows three layers of paint to be applied one after another while still wet, without manual intervention, resulting in a superior product created with fewer pollutants and less expense
An automated application process eliminates the prep stage in a paint shop, allowing the three layers of paint – primer, base and enamel – to be applied one after another without manual intervention and while each layer is still wet. The result is a superior product that offers a savings in time – specifically, about a 20 to 25 percent reduction in process time – along with a leadership position in sustainability.
Along with its suppliers, Ford pioneered the development of the high-solids coating material, successfully delivering both quality and durability and meeting all of the company's industry-leading quality paint metrics in chip resistance, scratch resistance, etch resistance, durability and outstanding appearance.
Ford Motor produces more fuel-efficient cars to reduce energy demand and protect our life's environment. Compared with conventional vehicles, hybrid vehicle decrease air pollution emission as well as sound levels impact on health. Otherwise, Ford Motor sees other success factors contributing to successful green technology as: low-prices, utility partnership and renewable power generation, alternative business models and alliances, government incentives and grants.
3. Insight
Ford Motor strengths include their knowledge customer base, product diversification, comforts and convenience technologies, safe, more fuel-efficient. Success in the automotive business is based on product and Ford Motor understand that they need to develop the new vehicles theirs customer want. To create product excellent and innovation need to save energy and have engineering efficient. Furthermore, Ford Motor has an exciting design both exterior and interior and improves costs to competitive levels. Ford's commitment to research and innovation is about millions of customers with different solutions that make their vehicles safer, cleaner and more convenient.
Ford Motor had a core competence and distinctive competence which help this company successful. A core competence is defined as “change or die, acting like a smaller, more agile company”. They know that they get a lot of competitors around and they believe that innovation is not only about design of their product, but also about changing the culture. For Ford Motor, there is a competitive advanced among competitors that are Ford culture and they know to preserve what is right in the Ford Culture. Furthermore, they make the necessary change to help theirs compete with the best, the fastest and the most efficient global competitors. I'm talking about the way they operate, the way they make decisions and the way they relate as a team
Technology advancements are reducing the tailpipe emissions that diesel engines traditionally produce. Buyers of Ford's Australian-made Territory SUV will be able to get a clean diesel option that generates fewer greenhouse gasses, while at the same time giving them better fuel economy performance than comparable petrol-driven engines. Clean diesel variants of a new 2.7-litre V6 engine will reduce CO2 by up to 25 per cent from six cylinder petrol engines.
Today, with a deep understanding of customer, Ford Motor has adapted a broad differentiation strategy. They created a wide valuable for customer choices. These values are: good service, low-price, promotion, loans credit, high level of quality products and creative product development team, advanced technologies, expressive design and a corporate reputation for quality and innovations. Besides, Ford Motor has a lot of major manufacture operations in several countries in the world so that they can distribute more easily, quickly and efficiently
4. CONCLUSION
In order to continue with rapid growth in global market, Ford Motor may focus on distinguishing themselves with top of the line products and services. Ford Motor has seen success and growth in the past in the engineering and automobile industries. The Ford Motor has the capabilities, technologies, and innovations preferred by professionals in these sectors. This is something for the company to grasp on to and plan for marketing to these industries.
Finally, there is a trend toward hybrid-electric vehicles and battery electric vehicles. Ford Motor may develop and focus on their version of electric vehicles in order to keep up with this trend. All electric vehicles sales have been very strong and Ford Motor announced that competitive market conditions and technological and cost challenges would prevent the company from achieving the goal
In 2006, Ford raised $23.5 billion in liquidity, consisting of $18.5 billion of senior secured debt and credit facilities, and $5 billion of convertible debt. During the same year, Ford eliminated common stock dividends. In 2007 and 2008, we issued more than $5 billion in new equity
