Steve Parker heard the same interview as I did with auto industry veteran Robert Lutz who has been lured back to GM out of retirement and he came away similarly unimpressed:
In an interview heard on All Things Considered on NPR Friday, Lutz told host Robert Siegel that, “We took our eyes off the ball in the ’70s, ’80s and early ’90s,” when it came to product quality.
Siegel naturally asked Lutz how the company might overcome more than 20 years of admittedly poor product and with a reputation and market share dropping almost by the minute, and all Lutz could offer was, “Well, none of us were here when that happened.”
More telling however, is this remark:
“The problem that we have right now is getting the breadth of the American public on both coasts and in the Midwest to realize the transformation that has taken place in General Motors’ quality, design, fuel efficiency and so forth,” he says.
Let’s put that sentence under the microscope. According to Lutz the transformation in General Motors’s products has already taken place (“the transformation that has taken place in General Motors’, etc.”), GM’s prospective customers are just too dumb to see it (“getting the breadth of the American public…to realize…”). No new attitude is needed; no new changes are needed; presumably, GM’s problems can be solved with better marketing and advertising.
The problem with this view is that it’s the view that has dominated GM for decades during which GM’s market share has languished in the United States. Today there aren’t just three big automakers, there are a dozen competitors for GM in the United States who won’t be standing still while GM tries to convince Americans to buy a pig in a poke.
Exactly. What GM needs is innovation since, as you’ve noted before, they likely can’t compete in most market segments.