科技前沿:通用汽車的挑戰:生存並拯救底特律

GM's challenge - Survive and save Detroit
No city in America has been more entwined with the fortunes of a single industry as Detroit with autos. The nicknames "Motor City" and "Motown," coined years ago, have stuck for good reason.

Most of the industry pioneers -- names like Wayne and Hupp, Packard and Maxwell -- have long since disappeared, and foreign automakers are expanding not in Michigan but farther south. Yet Detroit remains the home of the Big Three.

In Detroit, GM is the biggest game in town. Even after Chrysler fled to a northern suburb and Ford (F, Fortune 500) retreated to its Dearborn, Mich., campus, GM doubled down on the city.

In the mid-1990s it moved its headquarters to the city's most prominent landmark on the Detroit River, known appropriately as the Renaissance Center. After the investment of several hundred million dollars, GM's headquarters has become the centerpiece of the city's efforts to revive its downtown and develop its riverfront.

General Motors and Fortune have grown up together too. As Time Inc. founder Henry Luce was creating the modern business magazine at the end of the 1920s, GM was passing Ford to become the world's largest automaker.

In 1930, when -- Depression be damned -- Luce launched Fortune, GM showed its grit by introducing the first Cadillac with a 16-cylinder engine. When GM's legendary CEO Alfred P. Sloan published his landmark memoir, "My Years With General Motors," in 1963, the title page bore the name of his collaborator, a Fortune editor named John McDonald.

With this issue, Fortune commences its contribution to Time Inc.'s "Assignment Detroit" series with a look at two sides of GM: its management under the new leadership of president and CEO Fritz Henderson, and its manufacturing, as seen in the Poletown plant, one of two factories still assembling cars within the Detroit city limits.

Poletown, symbol of decades of strategic misdirection, represents the actions of an arrogant company that still believed, long after it had any reason to, that what was good for GM was good for the city of Detroit and the country.

Henderson's strategy for GM is simple: to focus on the car business again. Past CEOs were distracted by corporate debt and legacy costs, work rules, and franchise laws. Now those concerns have been mostly eliminated, stripped out during the bankruptcy process, and Henderson can apply his energy where it is most needed.

Henderson will be finding out what customers think by going out and talking to them, forcing his executive team to pay more attention to the competition, and applying more intellectual and financial capital to the creation of new products. Board chairman Ed Whitacre has given him his orders: GM needs to generate more revenue and more profit. There is no question where the buck stops.

Now that GM has decided to focus on four brands -- Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC -- Henderson's challenge is to persuade customers to take a look at them. The new model to watch next year won't be the overpriced Chevy Volt but a small car called the Chevy Cruze.

Since the 1960s GM has failed to build a small car that could compete with foreign brands. If it can't compete with the Cruze, it might as well throw in the towel. So far, reports on its design, fit, and finish are encouraging.

Henderson's biggest challenge is to find a way to change GM's thinking. Bankruptcy notwithstanding, there remains a tendency to explain away shortcomings.

GM could use some outside talent, but so far it has found none. Henderson promises to recruit managers from other companies but says government restrictions on compensation have prevented him from doing so.

GM's CEO won't like to hear it, but he could learn a thing or two from Alan Mulally, his competitor across town at Ford. Mulally has identified a clear vision of the future, gotten his managers behind it, and created a no-excuses culture. Ford executives today are dealing with the world as it is, not as they wish it would be.

Can Henderson do it? Yes, he can. I have never met an executive who was better prepared for his job. But can GM do it? There, I'm not so sure. With a few exceptions, there haven't been enough signs of fresh thinking or new ways to convince me that the new GM is a winner. All the ingredients are there, but they have to be successfully mobilized for GM to succeed. For the sake of Detroit, all of America should hope that it does.

底特律與汽車行業的命運息息相關，美國沒有哪座城市像它這樣與單個行業的命運聯繫如此緊密。於數年前創造出的綽號“汽車城”（"Motor City"）和“汽車鎮”（"Motown"）流傳至今並非無緣無故。

汽車行業內大部分先鋒——例如Wayne and Hupp以及Packard and Maxwell等——很久以前就不復存在，而外國汽車製造商不在密歇根州，而是在更南部擴張。不過底特律仍然是三巨頭（Big Three）的大本營。

在底特律，通用汽車（GM）是最大的公司。即便當克萊斯勒（Chrysler）逃往北部郊區而福特（Ford）撤退到其位於密歇根州迪爾伯恩的地盤，通用汽車還是加大了在底特律城的投資。

在上世紀90年代中期，通用汽車將其總部搬到底特律市底特律河最著名的地標建築——復興中心（Renaissance Center），這個名字可謂恰如其分。在投資數億美元後，通用汽車的總部已成爲底特律市復興其商業區、開發其河畔地區之努力的主要成果。

通用汽車和《財富》（Fortune）已經一同成長。上世紀20年代末，時代公司（Time Inc.）創始人亨利•盧斯（Henry Luce）籌辦這本現代商業雜誌之時，通用汽車正超越福特成爲世界第一大汽車製造商。

1930年——該死的大蕭條，盧斯創辦《財富》，同年，通用汽車推出第一款配置了16缸引擎的凱迪拉克，展現出極大的勇氣。當通用汽車傳奇性的首席執行官艾爾弗雷德•P•斯隆（Alfred P. Sloan）於1963年出版其標誌性的回憶錄《我在通用汽車的日子》（"My Years With General Motors"），封面頁上印有其合作者——《財富》一位名爲約翰•麥克唐納（John McDonald）的編輯——的名字。

從這本書開始，《財富》開始促成時代公司的“底特律任務”（"Assignment Detroit"）系列，從兩方面來審視通用汽車：其在新任總裁兼首席執行官韓德勝（Fritz Henderson）領導下的管理，以及其製造業——如在波蘭鎮工廠中所見。波蘭鎮工廠爲仍在底特律城邊界內組裝汽車的兩家工廠之一。

波蘭鎮是數十年戰略錯誤的標誌，代表了通用汽車這家傲慢的公司之行爲，該公司仍然相信——儘管它早沒有任何理由這麼做——對通用汽車好的就是對底特律城乃至美國好的。

韓德勝爲通用汽車制定的戰略很簡單：再次致力於汽車業務。過去的首席執行官被公司債務、遺留成本、工作規章以及特許權法分散了注意力。現在，上述憂慮大都在破產過程中被消除，因此韓德勝可將其精力用於最需要的地方。

韓德勝將通過出去與顧客交談了解他們的想法；將強迫其高管團隊更多的關注競爭對手；還會將更多的智力和財務資本應用於創造新產品。董事長埃德•惠特克（Ed Whitacre）已經向韓德勝下達了他的命令：通用汽車需要創造更多的收入和利潤。責任在誰毫無疑問。

既然通用汽車已經決定專注於四個品牌——雪佛蘭（Chevrolet）、凱迪拉克、別克（Buick）和GMC——韓德勝面臨的挑戰在於說服顧客考慮上述品牌。明年值得關注的新車型將不是標價過高的雪佛蘭Volt，而是一款名爲雪佛蘭科魯茲（Cruze）的小型車。

自上世紀60年代以來，通用汽車一直未能打造出一款可與外國品牌抗衡的小型車。假如這款科魯茲還是不具競爭力，通用汽車還不如直接認輸。不過，迄今爲止，關於科魯茲的設計、配備以及精加工的報道都令人鼓舞。

韓德勝最大的挑戰在於找到改變通用汽車思維的方法。儘管已經歷破產，但通用汽車仍然慣於爲任何缺點辯解。

通用汽車可以啓用一些外部人才，但目前它一位都沒找到。韓德勝承諾從其它公司招聘經理人，但他表示美國政府對薪酬的限制使他無法招募人才。

通用汽車的首席執行官不會喜歡聽下面這話，不過他確實能從艾倫•穆拉利（Alan Mulally）——在城市那頭的福特公司裏韓德勝的競爭者——身上學一兩招。穆拉利爲將來確定了清晰的願景，使該公司經理人接受了此願景，並創造出不找藉口的文化。現在，福特高管正應對真實的世界，而不是他們所希望的世界。

韓德勝能做到上述這些嗎？是的，他沒問題。他是我遇到過的最適合該職位的高管。但通用汽車能做到這些嗎？關於這一點，我不太確定。除了少數例外，尚沒有足夠多的新思維或新方法的跡象令我相信新通用汽車是贏家。所有要素都齊全了，但通用汽車要獲得成功，必須成功的調動這些要素。爲了底特律，所有美國人都應該希望通用汽車成功做到這一點。