Monday, September 18, 2006

Wall Street & Naysayers are at it again - This Time it's Ford Motor Company

Some of you may know my distaste for Wall Street. I have written about their short-term thinking and narrow-minded views when it came to General Motors (http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2006/07/wall-street-says-gm-leadership.html).

Wall Street says the massive cuts that Ford announced this week is not enough and their strategy will not be good enough to turn things around quick enough. How did they determine this because the stock price lowered about 12% ($1.07) on the news of their new CEO and restructuring plan “Way Forward II.”?

Nothing amazes me more than the arrogance of so-called industry watchers who think they know more what to do than the people at Ford. They want changes now and fast, which equates to more and more job loss because it is an easy fix and requires only a stone-heart to carry it off (Bill Ford cared to much). Here are some examples:

The plan "may slow the decline of this venerable icon of America's industrial golden age, but it is simply not enough."
Peter Morici, professor at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and former chief economist at the U.S. International Trade Commission

"It does not materially accelerate product introductions. It does not provide a solution for the troubled facilities assumed from Visteon. It does not cut capacity deeper. It's missing a lot."
John Murphy of Merrill Lynch, who downgraded Ford stock from neutral to sell

"We ... believe that these are not the right steps necessary to address Ford's overcapacity problem in North America. We are confident that we will see Ford's Way Forward Plan, Part 3, in the not-so-distant future."
-- Joseph Amaturo and Kelly A. Dougherty of Calyon Securities Inc.

Reread these comments, do you see any solutions offered? Do you see any mention of CUSTOMERS? Nope, it’s just BS from people who have no idea what they are talking about, anybody can sit back and throw darts at a dying elephant and not miss.

The type of problems Ford has are complex, they took years to develop. Many are the result of poor mismanagement that no longer works at Ford Motor Company. I posted about these types of complex problems last year. - http://qualityg.blogspot.com/2005/12/quality-complex-process-problems.html


Mike Thompson of the Detroit Free Press says it best in his cartoon:

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