General motors Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

General motors - Essay Example The company has its manufacturing bases in 37 countries and has eleven brands under its name. As on September 2013, the overall sale and revenue of the company is 152.84 billion dollars (Yahoo Finance, 2013). The company has its operations all round the world. It is engaged in the manufacturing of electric, mini cars and big vehicles such as trucks. The company also performs servicing functions. Thus, the consumers of General Motors ranges from upper-middle class segment, luxury and premium segment, consumers with agriculture and supply chain business and logistics service providers. So generally the company transfers most of its successful brand to different countries for everyone to avail them. GM has very good human resource policies and it employed about 3,000,000 people around the world. The major brands of General Motors include Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC, Wuling, Opel and Holden. The company does heavy investment on its technology for producing innovative cars. The management te am of the company is centralized and strong. This ensures that the operational functions of the company were standardized in most of its departments. However, the operations of GM in all its offices around the world are not standardized and the market share of the company is not uniform in all the countries. ... History Founded in the year 1908, William C. Durant was the first controller of the company. At first Durant was into manufacturing of horse driven vehicles, before entering into the automobile industry. Within few years the company went on to acquire many companies such as Cadillac, Oldsmobile etc. After the creation stage, came the acceleration stage. During this time Vauxhall, Opel and Chevrolet brands were introduced which took innovation to a new level. GM vehicles became aspirations and statements and changed the image of vehicles way beyond just transportation. During this time GM also expanded its plants to other states. Globalization of General Motors started during 1980 and 1990s. Majority of joint project and new establishments took place during this time. However, challenges started occurring during 2008, as a result of the global recession and economic downturn. The company had to take loan from US treasury and major restructuring had to be done in the strategy and plann ing. After filing for bankruptcy in 2009, GM emerged as leaner and more competitive organization (General Motors, 2013a). Mission Vision and Values The objective of the company is to be the most successful automaker in a span of 5 years and also ensure that the marketing strategies such as e-commerce technologies are utilized for the overall growth of the organization. The vision of the company is to build, design and sell best vehicles of the world. The company also aims to become the most respected automakers of the world. General Motors has indeed succeeded in moving towards its goals. The company has a unique and comprehensive mission statement which sums up the overall long term and short term goals and