Ford Motor Company: History, Organizational Structure, And Performance Essay. (70 Characters)

About Ford Motor Company

Ford Motor is one automobile company. This company manufactures, designs, services, and markets the electrified passengers as well as commercial vehicles like vans, cars, utility, ford trucks, and luxury vehicles (Link, 2018). Various segments are there in the Ford company, which includes Ford Credit, Mobility, and Automotive. The credit part of Ford is comprised of credit business on the consolidated business. The mobility sector includes the development of autonomous vehicles and relevant business processes. The automotive domain of Ford includes manufacturing, distributing, servicing, and developing.

Henry Ford is the founder of the Ford Motor Company. He was born in Wayne, Michigan on 30^th July 1863. He has a strong interest in mechanics and he used to spend the most time in a small machine shop (corporate.ford.com, 2022). Then, Henry Ford became an apprentice of a machinist in Detroit. He designed as well as built multiple racing cards one of which is known as Sweepstakes. On June 16in the year 1903, Henry Ford created the Ford Motor Company.

The automobile is a vehicle that is not powered by any human but rather is controlled by the human. The automobile has various range of vehicles such as buses, cars, bikes, and trucks. An automobile consists of an internal combustion engine that provides the power as well as the vehicle run on wheels. The main function of the automobile is to carry goods and people.

The company Ford Motor has accomplished a lot. In the year 1903, the company Ford Motor has been incorporated. With 12 investors in the company and about 1000 shares of the company, Ford Motor had spent about $28,000 cash for investment (corporate.ford.com, 2022). The first Ford Model was sold on July 23 in the year 1903. By 1^st October 1903, the company Ford Motor has turned a profit of about $37,000. Ford Motor opened its first-ever overseas sales branch in Paris.  

Ford has struggled a lot for remaining competitive and this company had promised to be the best-selling brand in America. The company has strong brand equity. This company has also automated the production facilities as well as the large franchised dealer network all over the world (Smithson, 2018). Ford Motor has enjoyed important success in China, where the demand for American automobiles was very strong (Arroyo, 2018). The proper approach for the organization appears to be the combination of the market penetration in market expansion and the domestic front in Asia and in the other parts of the World. This company had also increased the production and development of sports utility vehicles. The market of China continues the rapid expansion with Ford Motor Company. Ford started to expand the company to other continents too and established the operation in Asia, South America, and Europe as the first-ever international car company.

2021 was one of the challenging years for the automobile industry. Automobile semiconductor shortage has affected the production of automakers. However, Ford Motor Company has reported its financial performance in the context of the global market as Ford Motor has become one of the leading car companies in the world. The revenue of the Ford Motor Company has come to more than $136 billion in the year 2021. The revenue started to increase from $127 billion in the year 2020 (Carlier, 2022). Ford Motor Company has become the most popular car brand and this also claims the place as the second most valuable American automobile brand in the world. The company Ford Motor has also announced that the company would reduce the production of some key products such as the Mustang Mach-E electric crossover, and F-150 pickup. Now the company Ford Motor is increasing its focus on the new technology and electric vehicle, which could give a boost to the company in the global performance.

Henry Ford and the Beginning of Ford Motor Company

The organizational structure of the Ford Motor Company is based on the requirement to control the business operations as per the conditions of the regional market. The organizational structure of the Ford Motor Company defines the configuration of the organizational elements as well as the integration system. The organizational structure of Ford Motor relates to international automobile industry conditions. The global scope of the operations of Ford Motor determines the prime elements of the organizational structure, which are required to withstand market risk, and competition as well (Smithson, 2018). In this context, the position of the Ford Motor Company indicates the effectiveness of the organizational structure while supporting the organization to continue high performance along with the growth of their business. The company has three key features of its organizational structure such as corporate hierarchy, global functional groups, and regional geographic divisions. The international group of Ford Motor maintains the hierarchy through functional support.

The company Ford Motor Company has faced a vital impact on its organizational structure because of the financial crisis. The change in the organization was introduced by Mullaly the organization and had a pervasive impact on how the organization was structured, how it came with innovation and it fostered collaboration (Baker, 2016). Change in the organization has improved the profitability, desirability, and quality of the cars, which are sold under the Ford Motor Company. Because of the change, the company consistently ranks among the best in the industry and the company has started to grow and increase its profits. They also focused on reviving the luxury line. In the Europe market, the company Ford Motor has achieved success with the fuel-efficient and smaller vehicle that has increased the volume as well as increased the revenue.

The organizational structure of the Ford Motor Company consists of the internal management as well as products development divisions. The organizational structure also encompasses the significant factors related to various brands under their control. Ford Motor was one of the great examples of the Old Tail structure of organizational management. As the company Ford Motor evolved as well as developed an assortment of brands for appealing to the diverse market, the company has changed its organizational structure to a dual authority matrix (Rojas Gomez, 2016). The change was compounded by the expansion of the organization into various global markets which has led to the development of the global divisions and joint agreement with the international corporations that involves the development and sales of the vehicles of Ford. Because of this, the company created the global matrix organizational structure within the organization to deal with the expansion into the international marketplace.

Change in the organization is very relevant in the present day, which leads to multiple positive aspects, which also leads to retaining the competitive edge. Change in the organization encourages development skills, and innovation leads to better opportunities in business, develops staff as well as improves staff morale. Organizational change in the Ford Motor Company will give the ability for nurturing the new skills and new ideas that will help the business and the employees in the organization will become more rounded as well as talented. Change in Ford Motor also provides new opportunities, which helps the business in finding as well as nurturing the business opportunities in an effective way (Ponting, 2020). Having the stellar change strategies in the organization helps them to move forward into various new domains, which helps them to think of their working process in other ways. Changes help in expanding the collaboration with other shareholders and this also leads to growth in sales.  

Automobile Industry and Ford Motor Company

Society forcing change in Ford Motor Company can be the change in the social trends and demographic change. Changes in their trends can come from the demand and preferences of the people in society. The company can bring some changes in the functions of the vehicles as per the need of the customers. Social trends will pressure the company into making the change related to their vehicles. This can also be related to sustainability as well. The customers can become more conscious of the environment. Therefore, keeping the factors of a sustainable and better environment, the company will have to come up with some changes that will not harm the environment or nature in any way (Rhee, Bohnsack & Lee, 2017). They can also implement the demographic change, where the organization may need to change its culture for better management, collaboration, and production of the vehicles. They may need to establish other branches in some regions for growing their market and to provide the products to the customer efficiently.

Changes in consumer demand can occur in the business of Ford Motor Company in the future. As per the current needs of the customers related to their cars and other vehicles, the company will have to go through a change related to consumer demand, where they will have to focus on the demands and how they can fulfill the demand with better quality of the cars. The change related to customer demand can come from any unseen event or from any innovation, which can be addressed only with the consumer demand (Wilson & McKinlay, 2010). In the future, the consumers may demand some additional or unique features in their cars, which the company Ford Motor may not have. Therefore, they will always have to keep eye on the customer’s feedback and their needs so that they can implement the change in the organization for increasing their sales and growing in the global market. The change can also be related to the price as sometimes the cars of Ford Motors are not affordable because of the price. Therefore, the company might need to change the price of some vehicles so that they can provide the products to a wide range of customers.

There can be several environmental, which may or may not be caused by the company Ford Motor. However, the company must consider the key environmental issues, which are most likely to affect the activities of the business such as pollution, waste reduction, and sustainability. Pollution is one of the key concerns for the company Ford Motors as the company completely eliminates the rate of pollution that is caused by using the Ford vehicles (Rajala, Westerlund & Lampikoski, 2016). Therefore, in the future, the company Ford will have to work on this to reduce the rate of pollution made by vehicles. Sustainability is another significant issue that if not preserved may destroy the natural resources. Therefore, the company will have to make vehicles, which will be very sustainable to the environment and will not harm the nature or environment (Williander, 2006). The organization will have to reduce the generation of waste from its manufacturing units for making the environment healthy.

III. Conclusion

This can be concluded from this study that Ford Motor Company is one of the best and most popular companies all over the world. The company has seen growth since the year 1903 and it has also made its place in the global market effectively, which has given the company success. Organizational change in the Ford Motor Company will provide the ability for fostering various skills, which will help the organization to become more effective and make the employees more efficient and talented. Change in Ford Motor also provides new opportunities, which helps the business in finding as well as nurturing the business opportunities in an effective way. This study has discussed the organizational development in the company Ford Motor, where the paper discussed that the organizational structure of the Ford Motor Company is based on the requirement to control the business operations as per the conditions of the regional market, which is also integrated with the configuration of the organizational elements. The organization can also implement some strategies for making a change in the organization as the strategies would be beneficial for them to come up with innovation and new ideas. This study has also discussed the potential changes, which are society forced changes, environmental changes, and the change related to consumer demand.

References

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