Same Mistakes Again and Again

You can shrink your way to success by closing factories and laying off workers. Making cost cutting the major goal always leads to disaster. Only product leads to success, but the financial community doesn't like admitting that.

You must rationalize the industry. How many times do you hear that? Never trust anyone who uses the word “rationalize” — he wants to shut your plants. You never hear anyone calling to rationalize the number of Wall Street analysts or business- school professors.

Americans will buy a cheap little car. Small, cheap cars get identified as cars for poor people, and then even the poor people don't want them.

The one great success was the old Volkswagen Beetle, but it was a fine car that sold on whimsy, or maybe love.

Platform consolidation is the answer. Too many platforms are disastrous, I agree. But also remember that Chrysler was the best at platform consolidation. Everything came off one, the famous K platform. Boy, did we get bored.

Chrysler got hot when it junked platform consolidation and began building a variety of platforms sensibly and frugally.

“The chassis contributes as much of the personality of a vehicle as any of its other components. We can continue to try to fool ourselves into thinking our customers won't see it, or won't know the difference. But believe me, they will,” says a former Chrysler executive vice president and chief engineer.

We can always squeeze parts suppliers to cut costs. How many billions of dollars is General Motors paying because its parts supplier, Delphi, went bankrupt? How do you get cheaper parts out of bankrupt suppliers?

Don't offend your buyers with radical design. They want conservative styling. Check your focus groups. Need I say more?