Grudge Match! Maximum Bob Socks It To Rattlesnake Killer Whitacre
Isn’t the Internet wonderful? Now industry types can trade barbs directly, without going through unreliable journalists. Ed Whitacre still needed to write a book (or more like he had it written) to put down Bob Lutz, Dan Akerson et al. Bob Lutz, however, has his own blog, hosted at Forbes, and boy does he take revenge on Whitacre:
“Ed’s most notable contribution to design was a comment I recall at a Cadillac styling session. Professing to know nothing about cars (true), he nevertheless opined that Cadillacs had the look of ‘old-fashioned Choo-choo trains’.”
As the ultimate put-down, Lutz says the CEO was ignored: “We digested that opaque bit of input and elected to stay with what we had.”
Lutz’s biggest beef is with Whitacre taking credit for GM’s alleged success:
“Ed Whitacre is a good leader and he made an incremental improvement to the organization. But to suggest that he is the architect of GM’s current success is a bit like crediting the rooster with making the sun come up.”
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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I know to you TTAC guys he'll always be "Maximum Bob" but I prefer to think of him as "What About Bob?"
It'd be interesting to hear Lutz speak candidly about the current GM CEO.
GM's US market share (data from wardsauto.com) was 46.5% in 1976. It has declined steadily ever since, reaching 21.9% in 2008 (avg loss of around 0.77% p.a.), and hit 17.9% in 2012 (avg loss 2008-2012 of 1% p.a.). New GM's gross margin dropped to below 7% in 2012, and operating "income" was a $3.2 billion loss. This would be bad enough by itself. But considering that GM's balance sheet was wiped clean of liabilities by Chapter 11 in 2009, and labour contracts substantially rewritten in the comapany's favour, it is astonishing that the operating margins have deteriorated in this way. I have no emotional investment - pro or con - in any car company (have owned 11 cars since 1970, all but the first 2 were bought new and only once ever bought from the same maker twice in a row). From the numbers, GM's results should have management in crisis mode. Is that the case, though, or are they sleeping their way into BK2 the same way they did into BK1? At the beginning of 2009, Chrysler was less than worthless - sliding market share, bad product portfolio and positioning, terrible quality reputation, for starters. What a change from what was often regarded as the best-managed car company in the world prior to acquisiton by Daimler Benz! GM, by contrast, had a stronger market posiition, better product offerings, and stronger dealer network. At the time, the market view was that Chrysler would die and GM could recover. Both were put through Chapter 11, Chrysler has staged a truly remarkable recovery (hats off to all in Italy and North America who made this happen). GM got a short-term financial benefit from Chapter 11, but has largely continued to decline. There is a great case study in this, but the numbers indicate that GM is heading inexorably towards BK2 unless it does something very different, very quickly.
I'd like to see Elon Musk get the same respect around here as Maximum Bob. Both are lightning rods, but Musk is called 'arrogant' while Lutz is merely 'entertaining'.