Ford unveils new roadmap for survival

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: already the stuff of legend in Detroit, Ford’s top executives review the company’s progress on the turnaround plan. By the end of September, the full magnitude of the global credit collapse was becoming all too apparent to Ford and the company needed to take urgent action to shore up its liquidity. The weekly meetings became daily sessions. Mulally summoned the leaders of Ford’s Asian and European operations to Dearborn. Along with Ford Americas President Mark Fields, Kuzak and other key executives, they began looking for ways to conserve Ford’s liquidity. Each time, they would emerge from the Thunderbird Room with orders for their respective teams, which would then work long into the night crunching numbers and running models.

They worked Saturdays and Sundays, poring through the company’s business plan looking for places to save more costs. But the discussion always returned to the product plan.

Vehicle programmes are a huge expense. Cutting one is an easy way to balance the books. GM is postponing new investment in its pickups to save money. Chrysler LLC canceled part of its product portfolio earlier this year. Some at Ford wanted to do the same thing.

“It was like, OK, which one do you want to cut out? Which one do you think we don’t need? Remember, this is to stabilise our position in the market and actually grow. We’re not going to stabilise anything if we keep cutting,” Mulally said. “You have to allow that debate to happen, because we had to still come up with all of the hard actions.” Kuzak told The News that he saw little point in preserving cash at the expense of Ford’s lineup.

“Outstanding products are the heart of any turnaround of our business and its future success,” he said. “The whole intent from the beginning was to protect the product plan and the capital spending and engineering and look for every other element of cash that isn’t directly tied to the products.”

Mulally’s turnaround plan is based on consolidating Ford’s worldwide operations to better leverage its global scale. Kuzak said many elements of that plan are ahead of schedule, and he challenged his department heads around the world to study their budgets to determine what could be eliminated in light of these newfound efficiencies. Other executives did the same.

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