1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910779137203321

Autore

Taylor Alex <1945->

Titolo

Sixty to zero [[electronic resource] ] : an inside look at the collapse of General Motors, and the Detroit auto industry / / Alex Taylor III ; foreword by Mike Jackson

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven [Conn.], : Yale University Press, c2010

ISBN

0-300-15888-2

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (192 p.)

Altri autori (Persone)

JacksonMike

Disciplina

338.7/62920973

Soggetti

Automobile industry and trade - Michigan - Detroit - History

Bankruptcy - Michigan - Detroit - History

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Includes index.

Nota di contenuto

GM at the peak -- Growing up in the car-crazy fifties -- Cracks in GM's edifice -- Insecure colossus: the Roger Smith era -- Ford speeds up -- The Saturn moonshot -- Lee Iacocca, blemishes and all -- Bob Stempel and the crisis of '92 -- Jack Smith's unfinished revolution -- Bob Eaton's big score -- GM on cruise control -- Succession battles at Ford -- Wagoner takes over -- Nasser, Ford, and Mulally -- The legend of Lutz -- The uneven legacy of Lee -- GM's inexorable collapse -- The end of the road.

Sommario/riassunto

The collapse of General Motors captured headlines in early 2009, but as Alex Taylor III writes in this in-depth dissection of the automaker's undoing, GM's was a meltdown forty years in the making. Drawing on more than thirty years of experience and insight as an automotive industry reporter, as well as personal relationships with many of the leading players, Taylor reveals the many missteps of GM and its competitors: a refusal to follow market cues and consumer trends; a lack of follow-through on major initiatives; and a history of hesitance, inaction, and failure to learn from mistakes. In the process, he provides lasting lessons for every executive who confronts the challenges of a changing marketplace and global competition. Yet Taylor resists condemning GM's leadership from the privileged view of hindsight. Instead, his account enables the reader to see GM's decline through the eyes of an insider, with the understanding that corporate decision-



making at a company as large as General Motors isn't as simple as it may seem. Taylor's book serves as a marvelous case study of one of the United States' premier companies, of which every American quite literally now holds a share.