GM – Triggers for Internationalization
General Motors Company (GM) is the world’s largest producer of vehicles (Datamonitor, 2006), selling a range of automobiles on the market. With its biggest commercial footprint in North America, it designs, produces and sells vehicles worldwide. The company has manufacturing, distribution or warehousing operations in about 55 countries, in addition to the 20 assembly plants and 30 distribution and warehousing centers in the US. Canada is another big facility hub where GM operates in 20 cities. But the company’s position at the top is seriously under threat, if the latest reports are an indication. Toyota was able to sell more cars than GM in the first quarter of 2007, pushing GM for the first time into second place (USA Today, 2007). GM has its headquarters in Detroit, Michigan and employs about 335,000 employees. Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, GMC, GM Daewoo, Holden, Hummer, Opel, Pontiac, Saab, Saturn, and Vauxhall are all models. During the fiscal year ended December 2005, GM posted sales of $192.604 million. GM also owns equity partnerships in some regional subsidiaries and joint ventures like New United Motor Manufacturing (NUMMI), Suzuki Motor Corporation, Isuzu Motors, Shanghai GM, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Company and CAMI Automotive (Datamonitor, 2006).
Yes, the car market has become very competitive, with big players such as GM, Ford, Toyota, Audi, BMW, VW etc. in addition to a number of local car players, vying for the international market. With technology playing a major role in advancements of the features in a car, ICT helping in making the care more intelligent, marketing communication techniques have started playing a major role in convincing the customer. General Motors also outlined plans for its ICT needs and the company signed $15bn (£ 8.5bn) deals with IBM, HP, over the next five years EDS, Capgemini, Compuware Covisint and Wipro (Brown, 2006). General Motors has also unveiled E-Flex electric architecture, configured with GM’s newest, most efficient hydrogen fuel cell system to date, at the recently held Shanghai Auto Show (GM, 2007). Company believes that the fuel cell technology has the potential to be a competitive alternative to the internal combustion engine – in size, performance, durability and cost. Internationalization offers the company an opportunity to plan moves for a wider range of customer base. Strategic decisions are concerned with the issue of setting a direction for the organization to move or the course the organization will follow. It is not counted merely in terms of the financial results but other factors like brand equity, market standing, media publicity, customer loyalty etc are the yardsticks which measure the strategic moves. Strategic management function becomes all the more important in case of large organizations like General Motors. New business approaches are followed as market demands improve operating pace. Strategists are more confident and relaxed with the prospects of expansion growth and once the company feels safe and established enough on the home ground, it can be very successful start thinking about crossing borders and joining the globally fiercely competitive arena.
