Ford and Relationships

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject Business economics - General, grade: very good, Mälardalen University (Institution of Economics), course: Strategies and the new Economy, language: English, abstract: In today's world, companies are part of a complex environment. At the latest with the change from seller to buyer market in the 70s, companies cannot see themselves apart from their surroundings. Technological, economic and social change directly influence companies. The company Ford is one of the best known American automobile manufacturer. They strongly depend on their environment as product specifications need to respond to governmental regulation, economic factors such as oil prices, customer demands or technology standards. When fierce competition in the automobile market turned the market around during the 70s, Ford seemed to loose market share so quickly to Japanese firms, that the company even had to shut down plants. Ford was found in 1903 and has a long tradition of influencing the car industry. The assembly line is only one example where Ford was able to drop prices for an automobile from 850 to 260 Dollars in 1923 to bring cars to the masses. Though influential in the past, the company seemed to loose against Japanese car producers with only little historic background. A true success story seemed to end during the late 70s and early 80s when losses where at their peek. It is interesting to see, how this situation came across. In the 90th, Ford was back and introduced superior quality cars. The turning of the company seems to be a hundred percent from completely classical to a more adaptive strategy making. This seems mysterious for such an old and traditional American company.