The famous Ford Motor Company needs no introduction. It was founded by Henry Ford and came into existence on the 17th of June, 1903. The
Ford Motor Company has its headquarters in Dearborn, Michigan in the United States of America.
The Ford Motor Company is an American multinational
Motor Company that holds the distinction of being the second largest automobile manufacturer in the world.
Ford figures very high in the Fortune 500 list as well that speaks volumes about its credentials and performance. The statistics for the year 2006 showed that approximately 6.6 million vehicles were manufactured by the
Ford Company and it has employee strength of approximately 2,80,000 working worldwide.
Ford introduced several new techniques in the automobile manufacturing industry. These techniques aimed at better management of day to day affairs, employee management and maintenance of a highly motivated task force and also competent prices. The vision of this successful entrepreneur Henry Ford and the techniques employed by him in making
Ford Motor one among the top few automobile manufacturers in the world took the automobile manufacturing industry by storm.
The late 90’s saw a huge jump in the sales of the Ford automobiles and with the boom in the American economy the share prices of the Ford stock went through the roof. However, the turn of the century did not seem to be very encouraging for the
Ford Motor Company as it witnessed a fall in profits and also sales. The rise in the fuel prices had its negative effects that showed clearly on the profits of the company. The fall in demand for trucks and SUV vehicles also had a major impact on the sales and the overall profits of the company.
Ford was however, not a company that would take all this lying down and a change in strategy saw the introduction of the Crossover SUV. Vehicles with higher fuel efficiency were introduced like for instance the Escape Hybrid. With its new strategy of cutting costs and other methods, the
Ford Motor Company was able to make a huge turnaround from the situation of a loss of $12.7 million in 2006 to a whooping 750 million profits in the second quarter of 2007. The sales of Aston Martin contributed greatly to this big jump.
Ford’s plans for the future include coming back to the position of a profitable company and doing away with
Car Models that are not doing well. It has sold off its wholly owned subsidiary the “Hertz rent a car”.
Ford has a huge manufacturing and sales network in countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, China and the like. The
Ford Motor Company is the name behind Aston Martin, Jaguar,
Volvo cars and
Land Rover. It has other ventures like the sale of aftermarket parts under the name “Motor craft” and the Automobile loans which is looked after by the Ford Motor Credit Company.
Ford aims at customizing to cater to it individual market segments. The requirements of different countries are different and thus, trying to globalize or have a universal model failed making the company realize the importance of customizing to the requirements of the individual countries. Some of the popular
Car Models launched by the Ford Motor Company include the
Ford Escort, the Ford Monde, the Ford Mustang to name a few. Ford has several plans for the future and aims to launch successfully environmental friendly vehicles.
