Of Excuses and Successes

March auto results came out last week.  (See article here)

Toyota sold 12% more than a year ago.  Honda’s U.S. sales rose 11%.  Nissan’s rose 8%.  Hyundai and Kia also posted increases.  GM sales fell 4%.  Ford sales fell 9%.  Chrysler sales fell 5%.

What’s interesting is the comments made by the U.S. manufacturers.  GM said sales were off because of "planned reductions in sales to rental fleets."  Ford said they also suffered from declining rental fleet sales, but they are dependent upon big-vehicle (SUV and truck) sales and the F-Series saw a 15 percent sales decline.  And, of course, last year saw record sales for these vehicles so this month should be ignored.   They also seemed to miss that sales of Toyota’s full-size truck sales quadrupled (that’s 4x) in the month.

Defend & Extend management reacts to problems by pretending the problems don’t exist, or saying that there’s an explanation indicating the problem isn’t real.  Avoiding the problem is a common reaction to problems for D&E managers.

GM, Ford and Chrysler are loaded with D&E managers more intent upon prolonging the Success Fomulas than dealing with the market Challenges.  Meanwhile, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Hyundai and Kia are selling more cars.  When a Success Formula no longer produces positive results it needs to change.  But Defend & Extend managers are unwilling to admit it.  And until they do, it makes competing much easier for the small market players.

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