Opel's Stracke Has Visions
Many years ago, an old school Volkswagen exec said to me: “If I want to have visions, I simply drink a few bottles more.”
How things have changed. Nowadays, if you want to be a CEO, you must have a vision. Winterkorn’s vision is world domination by 2018. His colleague Karl-Friedrich Stracke also has a brand new vision. According to Germany’s Focus Magazin, Stracke said at a meeting for the upper management:
“My vision is: Opel/Vauxhall will book from, 2016 one billion Euro in profit, will have a gross margin of 5 percent and a market share of 8.5 percent in Europe.”
Of course, costs and profits will have to be a center of attention for that, Stracke said. Of course they have. According to Focus, Stracke has a list of rather uninspired action items:
- In Germany, (where fleet sales are not super high) Opel wants to have more fleet sales.
- In the UK, (where for tax reasons a car is often part of the pay package and fleet sales dominate,) Vauxhall wants to have more retail sales
- Costs have to come down
- Profits have to go up
- Until 2014, Opel will launch 30 new cars
- Scale effects with GM have to be used more intensively, for instance with seats and brakes
Pretty lame, no? Someone get him a consultant who can come up with a more rip-roaring vision.
Could it be that Stracke hasn’t received the memo that they are getting impatient at the RenCen? Girsky etc. are thinking more in terms of the next quarter than in 2016 visions.
Why 2016? I have no idea. But I have a suspicion: CEO contracts in Germany usually go for a 5 year term, and Stracke signed on in April 2011 …
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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As an owner of an Opel product (that my wife and I love), I sure hope that he can produce results fast enough to keep the GM axe from falling. As much as we lamented the loss of Saturn (yeah, we're THAT kind of crazy), it was not so bad because we knew we'd still be able to buy a GM-badged Opel over at Buick.
If opel dies, what will happen to the American autos based on opel platforms?
His vision has a huge obstacle: the European economy.
gross margin of 5 percent? pardon my ignorance, is that typical for automotive industry?