the phoenix
Mulally Bows Out
On a High
It was with sadness that I heard at Ford South Africa’s quarterly media breakfast on 5 May that Alan Mulally would
be retiring as president and CEO of Ford Motor Company on 1 July 2014. Not that I should have been surprised,
as Mulally turns 69 in August. I can understand that he needs a rest. I am seven years younger than him, I look
after assets somewhere around R100 00, and only employ three people, and I need a rest!
A
nd whilst I fancy myself as
a turnaround artist, I can
only dream to achieve what
Mulally has achieved since his arrival
at Dearborn in late 2006. Mulally,
recruited from Boeing, and an industry
outsider, very quickly saw what
the problem was at the struggling
company. Faced with financial
losses, low morale and declining
sales, Mulally was able to see the
wood for the trees, and he realised
that what the company needed was
a unified global strategy. He also
dismantled the traditional model of
executives working in their own little
silos, and he insisted on openness
and transparency. What he came up
with was the now highly acclaimed
“One Ford” strategy, supported by an
aggressive restructuring, accelerated
product development, financial support
and a focus on the balance sheet, and
one team with one goal, leveraging
off global assets. The end result has been
19 consecutive quarters of profitability, the
development of the strongest product lineup in Ford’s history and the embarkation
of the company’s most ambitious global
expansion in the past half century.
At the media breakfast, Jeff Nemeth, CEO
and president of Ford Southern Africa,
assured us that this strategy will continue
under Mark Fields, who moves up from
COO to CEO. This appears to be a longplanned and seamless CEO transition
and it underscores the strength of Ford’s
leadership team and succession planning
process. Executive chairman Bill Ford said
at the announcement that “from the first
➲ Ford’s model lime-up has improved significantly
day we discussed Ford’s transformation
eight years ago, Alan and I agreed that
developing the next generation of leaders
and ensuring an orderly CEO succession
were among our highest priorities.
Alan deservedly will be long remembered
for engineering one of the most successful
business turnarounds in history, and under
Alan’s leadership, Ford not only survived
the global economic crisis, it emerged
as one of the world’s strongest auto
companies. We always will be grateful to
Alan for his leadership, compelling vision
and for fostering a culture of working
together that will serve our company for
decades to come.”
I always look forward to Ford’s
quarterly media Ford breakfasts,
because the updates (particularly the
past 19 quarters) are always upbeat,
and there is always an interesting
presentation by an economist,
plus little gems that you pick up in
question time. For example, the latest
breakfast had economist Chris Hart
looking at the business/economic
cycle, the political situation, and the
influence of the unions contributing
to our weak currency, a slow
economy and the fear of increased
inflation after the cost push demand
pull balancing act ends. I also loved
his observation that there is a clash
of cultures when it comes to viewing
the misappropriation of funds by our
leaders. The people who are used to
a feudal system see nothing wrong in
number one building a fancy house,
whilst those who prefer to think that
we are a modern constitution see it
as plain theft. No guessing on which
side of the fence I stand!
I also enjoyed Hart’s
observation that Nigeria’s
ascent to Africa’s top economy
was an exercise in numbers
and not reality. I agree, but
the future is on Nigeria’s side,
and Nemeth’s statement that
“plants will be built where the
customers are” is telling.
Whilst this issue of aBr is jam packed with information, our monthly contribution cannot do justice to the wealth of information
available on a daily basis, so don’t forget to get your daily fix on our website. Make sure that you make regular visits to
| words in action
2
june 2014
www.abrbuzz.co.za