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By: Brenda Gonitzke Ford Motor Company began a manufacturing revolution with its mass productions assembly line in the early 1900’s. Now the company is firmly entrenched in the status quo as the world’s largest pickup truck maker and the number two producer of cars and trucks, behind General Motors. It makes vehicles with such brands as Aston Martin, Ford, Jaguar, Lincoln, Mercury, and Volvo. Among its biggest successes are the Ford Taurus and F-Series pickup. Ford owns a controlling (33%) stake in Mazda and has purchased BMW’s Land Rover SUV operations. The finance subsidiary, Ford Motor Credit, is the United States number one auto finance company. It also owns Hertz, the world’s number one car rental firm. The Ford family owns about forty percent of the company’s voting stock. The Ford Motor Company was founded by Henry Ford on June 16, 1903. This was his third company that he founded, but it was the only one that succeeded. Henry Ford owned just 25.5% of the stock in 1903—he didn’t become president and controlling owner until three years later. The company began production on a two-cylinder, eight-horsepower design called the Model A. The company produced 1,708 of these models in the first year of operation. (Pictured above is a replica of the 1903 Model A). One year later, Ford Motor Company expanded to Windsor, Ontario, across the Detroit River. Ford Motor Company’s headquarters are in Dearborn, Michigan. Ford’s business strategy is all about the customer being their number one priority. Their vision is “To become the world’s leading consumer company for automotive products and services. Their mission is: “We are a global, diverse family with a proud heritage passionately committed to providing outstanding products and services that improve people’s lives.” Their values are “The customer is Job 1. We do the right thing for our customers, our people, our environment and our society. By improving everything we do, we provide superior returns to our shareholders.” Of the 112 worldwide plants, forty-eight of them are located in the United States and thirty-four of them are in Europe. Some of Ford’s major changes in 2000 included the completion of the purchase of the BMW Land Rover and supporting the formation of FordDirect.com, an internet-based enterprise offering services to customers wishing to purchase Ford vehicles online. They also purchased minority interest in Top Driver, the largest driver education company of its kind in the United States, and spun off Visteon Corporation, a subsidiary providing automobile parts and systems. The 2000 sales revenue for Ford Motor Company showed the following values: $141.2 billion in automotive operations, $23.7 billion from Ford financial services, and $5.1 billion from Hertz. Ford’s competitive forces are those external influences that affect Ford’s strategy and ability to compete in the automotive market. For many years, Ford’s competitors have been other United States and Japanese automakers, buts its greatest threat today may be coming from the internet.
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