The following is opinion about the new Chrysler management team from Jerry Flint.
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That aside, I find big problems with the new Chrysler management team, too.
I hear that Cerberus Capital Management, Chrysler's new owners, had hired Wolfgang Bernhard, one of the top car men in the world, to run Chrysler. Bernhard was one of the executives behind the Chrysler 300 success and for cutting costs, too. Apparently, he walked out when he found out he would not be the boss but was to follow the orders of Bob Nardelli, former chief executive of Home Depot and alum of General Electric. Prior to coming to Chrysler, Nardelli had no automotive experience.
Chrysler's new managers declared they were losing money on vehicles such as the Chrysler Pacifica crossover and Dodge Magnum wagon and said they would kill them in the near future. The same goes for one of my favorites, the
Chrysler PT Cruiser. (Note: Chrysler has said officially that it is killing only the
PT convertible, but I am sure that they plan to dump them all). These vehicles are still in production, but it must be hard to sell a car you have declared to be future roadkill. Frankly, I find it hard to see how they could be losing money on these vehicles since they have been in production for years, which means that the company has already paid for their tooling. What these vehicles needed was some sales effort.
Bob Nardelli just put the public relations department under personnel--oops, human resources--and the PR vice president at Chrysler quit. Jason Vines happened to be one of the best public relations experts in the auto business, so his walkout leaves a bad message about this management. Nardelli is also hiring a PR consultant, and that means it will cost them more, not less--we all know about consultants.
Then Chrysler appointed a new purchasing boss, a former associate of Nardelli at the hardware store. Everyone assumes this means the company will be buying more parts from China, where everything is cheap. This is a bad and potentially dangerous move.
What the new crew seems to forget is that the purchasing department worked best at Chrysler when it offered their vendors a fair deal and shared cost savings with suppliers. In those days, Chrysler and the suppliers were profitable.
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Full article at
It Is The Product, Smart Guys! - Forbes.com
Source:
Forbes, Jerry Flint.