Ford Motor Company Swot Analysis

FORD MOTOR COMPANY

Whenever we talk about innovation and creativity in the automobile the company which comes to mind is undoubtedly Ford Motor Company. The founder of the company , an industrialist, Henry Ford was a very creative and dextrous man. The company was established on June 16,1903. The headquarters of the company are in Dearborn , Michigan, USA. It is one of the members of the Big Three in the American automotive industry. The commercial vehicles are sold under the brand name of Ford whereas the luxury vehicles are sold under the brand name Lincoln. Ford also owns Troller which is a SUV manufacturer based in Brazil, and Ford Performance Vehicles which is a Melbourne based automobile manufacturer. Ford owns stakes in companies across

However, it was renamed as Cadillac Motor Company after Henry Ford left the company. The initial investors were a few people chief among them were John and Horace Dodge. During the early years the company produced a few cars which were assembled by men working in groups of two or three.

Henry Ford was 39 years of age when he founded the Ford Motor Company. The company went on to become one of the most profitable as well as one of the largest companies in the world. Also, it was counted among the few companies which managed to survive the Great Depression.

Jaguar Cars and Aston Martin was acquired by Ford in 1990 and 1994 respectively. During the mid- ninety’s Ford continued to sell a large number of vehicles as the fuel prices were low and the stock market was on soaring high. However, all this changed with the advent of the new century which saw a rise in oil prices, higher healthcare costs, decline in economy, faltering sales which led to decreased profit margins.

The corporate bonds for Ford had been downgraded to junk status by the year 2005. However, this was due the fact that there was an increase in healthcare costs and oil prices, an eroding market share and finally their overdependence on the declining SUV

The biggest contribution of Ford towards the automobile industry was the moving assembly line which was first introduced in Ford’s Highland Park Plant. It was game changer for Ford as it made the process more efficient, helped the company to surpass its competitors in production and at the same time making the vehicles cheap and affordable. The moving assembly line was first introduced in April 1913.

Next came the famous Ford model T was an automobile which was produced by Ford. It is considered to be the first affordable vehicle which had all of Ford’s efficient fabrication which included the assembly line production as compared to the earlier individual hand crafting.

Automobiles were a luxury until the innovation of model T. It was a car for the common man. It marked the year of 2008 as a historical year as it made automobiles popular in the mass market.

Some of the other earlier innovations from Ford included , the first engine with a removable cylinder head in the Ford T. In 1930 Model A , introduced by Ford was the first car with safety glass in windshield. In 1932 it launched the first low price V8 engine. It also introduced innovations such