Ford Motor Company Essay

Ford has manufacturing plants and operations all around the world which includes Canada, Mexico China, UK , Turkey, Germany, South Africa, Argentina and Brazil. Also, they have a cooperative agreement with the Russian automaker GAZ.
Different Products and services:
1) Automobiles: Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Edsel, Merkur, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Volvo, Landrover, Mazda, FPV and Troller.
2) Trucks: Ford F-650, L9000, LNT9000, FT900
3) Financial Services: Through Ford Motor Credit Company
4) Automotive Components: Fomoco parts sells under Microsoft aftermarket.
Ford Credit does the task of offering vehicle financing to retail consumers and other dealers. Close to 40% of all vehicles that were sold by Ford, Lincoln dealerships were taken care by Ford

They control the employee behaviour aand the employees there have no autonomy. In case any problem arises at Ford, employees turn to the rule book to look for the solutions. This method leads to consistency in the behaviour of the Ford employees.
Due to formalization, employees at Ford aren’t motivated to innovate because employees behave in a same manner. There is no strategic decision making at Ford, until and unless a crisis situation comes up. It even leads to reduced job satisfaction.
MECHANISTIC v/s ORGANIC
Ford has a Mechanistic structure that resembles a bureaucracy and it is highly formalized and to a huge extent centralized. Communication in Ford follows formal channels and most of the employees are provided with specific job descriptions which clearly list down their roles and responsibilities. The structure is rigid and resists change making it less innovative and unable to take prompt and quick action. This has inhibited entrepreneurial action and discouraged individual initiative. They have also limited individual autonomy.
 Employees work separately and are usually specialized in one specific task.
 There is a clear hierarchy and that is the integrating

Companies like Ford look to minimize costs and produce uniform products.
BUSINESS STRATEGY:
Historically, Ford had operated as four different companies: North American Company, South American Company, European company, Asia- Pacific Company. But, an enterprise as big as Ford, they were not able to realize the profits and benefits one gets by going global. They designed cars separately for different regions and this led to lot of waste in time and work. But they realized their mistake just before the recession and this is when they hired Alan Mulaly, who came up with a new business strategy.
“One Ford-One Team-One Plan-One Goal”
Ford followed and follows a differentiation focus strategy and it holds good for the reorganization done within their business. At a time when they were going through a crisis period and there was heavy debt mounting, the company decide to go for newer products rather than making limited products. Irrespective of which country the car was being sold, the customer bought the car because of its reliability, after sales service and safety. They mainly did this by investing in R&D and giving the customers the extra something. SYNC, MyFordTouch and cross traffic alert systems are some examples of Ford’s focus differentiated