Driver behind Ford's revival

 

DETROIT: There's a new hero in the world automotive industry and it's Alan Mullaly, the top gun hired in 2006 by Ford from Boeing to turn the company around.

Looking at the journalists who thronged around Mullaly, it would appear that he's assumed the mantle that once belonged to Renault/Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn four years ago when he held the Japanese press in thrall as he gracefully led Nissan out of its years of losses.

Cloaked in the security of 2009 sales data that showed Ford Motor Company winning market share for the first time in years, Mullaly strode confidently into the dinner on the eve of the North American International Automotive Show. Or the Detroit Motor Show in short.

Ford posted a 33 per cent rise in December US light car sales and recorded its first increase in market share - by a full percentage point - for the year, its first full year of market share increase since 1995.

Chrysler's market share dropped 3.7 per cent while GM lost 5.7 per cent of the estimated 10.4 million vehicle sales for 2009, the lowest since 1982 when total industry volume was 10.2 million according to an Autodata Corp figure quoted by the Wall Street Journal on January 6.

The journalists from the China market were the first to crowd around him and one of the main questions was about the sale of Volvo, a Ford-owned brand, to ambitious, privately-owned China car company, Geely.

"Love it and treasure it," he said.

As the different groups of journalists pressed around him, it was clear that Mullaly holds the story of Boeing and aviation close to him.

"Have you flown in a 777 before? I sold that to almost every market in Asia," he jokes with a reporter.

His message is clear, aviation and automobiles is about safe and efficient transport.

"We once had a house of 97 brands and now we have a laser focus on 10 nameplates in the Ford brand. We will offer our customers the whole spectrum of their needs, from cars to utilities and trucks. We'll prove that the best in class is Ford."

It's interesting that under Mullaly, Ford has a new slogan of 1Ford. We don't know who came up with this first, Malaysia with its 1Malaysia, or Ford with its 1Ford, but it's a coincidence nevertheless.

When asked about Southeast Asia and the prospects of Ford entering Malaysia's car industry if there were no tariff and non-tariff barriers, he said "We want to operate in every country where we sell cars. This was one of the guiding philosophies of Henry Ford, the founder of Ford Motor Company."

The 1Ford concept is one where the company will go back to the basics of leveraging the economies of scale. For instance, it will have just one platform of its new world car in the C Class, the Ford Focus, but it will have up to 11 "top hats", Ford's terminology of the body above the car's platform.

It plans to sell two million of the new Focus worldwide this year, starting with the four door sedan and the five-door hatchback.

The second plank of its 1Ford strategy is to give the best technology in class. The proof of this is that the new Focus will have turbochargers to improve fuel economy and power. The models with the I-4 four-cylinder engines will have single turbochargers while the V6 models will have twin turbochargers.

Electric power assisted steering, a fuel-efficiency innovation replacing the traditional hydraulic power-assisted steering, will be in the Focus and introduced into 80 per cent of Ford's cars by 2013.

Mullaly's parting shot to his guests as he strode off to his next appointment was: "Remember, Fly Boeing and Drive Ford."