Michael Braun's Blog

Last quarter, Ford Motor Company lost 8.7 billion dollars. In harsher terms, they lost $8,700,000,000. It’s painful to see a former powerhouse of American workmanship and brand marketing fall by the wayside. Their fearless CEO, Alan Mulally, is ready and willing to do what it takes to get the company back on track. But what will it take to get Ford back in the driver’s seat, especially after it’s been left for roadkill?

1. Fuel Economy.
Start putting 6-speed automatic transmissions into your cars, standard! This will greatly increase their fuel mileage on the highway. Make the engines turn off at stoplights. Work on the aerodynamics. Get rid of the worst offenders for MPG – especially those behemoth SUVs dealers can’t get rid of.

2. Design and Branding.
When I think Ford, I am not struck with positive thoughts. I can’t think of a single Ford that appeals to me, and that’s after spending 5 years of my life driving a Ford Escort, which I loved. If I was forced to buy a Ford car today, the only car I could stomach is the Focus. So get to work on that problem, Ford. We need cool cars that are also small. Make people who don’t care about fuel mileage want to buy one of your cars, that gets great mileage! Honda and Toyota, Nissan and Mazda (not to mention, VW, BMW, and more) – they’ve all got little cars that are also cool (or at least, well designed). Good gas mileage is merely a side benefit.

3. Look to the Future.
Okay, I’ll give it to you, Ford; you created a product back in the 1990s that a lot of people loved. That Ford Explorer sold like hotcakes, as did the various offshoots that you and your competitors put together. It was the backlash against the minivan. It was a useful vehicle that was also cool. But once you found a good thing, you didn’t know when to move on to something else. If you had taken a survey of new buyers purchasing the Explorer back when it was new, something like, “would you buy this car if you knew, based on your driving habits, it was going to cost you $200 a week to operate because of fuel costs?”, what do you think the response would have been? Right now the trend seems to be going towards smaller, more fuel efficient cars. Get on that bandwagon and run with it. But don’t forget to have people still thinking about what is next. The market is always changing. Better to be ahead of the wave then getting tumbled in the surf.