General moters

                     General moters

• Founder: William C. Durant.
• Distinction: World’s number-one automaker, and largest company in terms of sales.
• Primary products: Cars, trucks and related parts.
• Annual sales: $176.558 billion.
• Number of employees: 388,000.
• Major competitors: DaimlerChrysler, Ford, Toyota.
• Chairman: John F. Smith Jr.; President and CEO: G. Richard Wagoner Jr.
• Headquarters: Detroit, Mich.
• Year founded: 1908.
• Web site: www.gm.com.


On the surface, it would seem that G. Richard Wagoner Jr. and Alfred P. Sloan have little in common. Sloan, the long-time leader at automotive giant General Motors, began his storied reign in 1923 when both industry and product were relatively new, competitors numbered in the dozens, and management had undergone a major upheaval. Wagoner, the most recent to assume control at GM, took over in June 2000 when both industry and product were quite mature, competitors were few and rapidly dwindling, and management had been stable for nearly a decade. Nonetheless, Wagoner shares more with his legendary predecessor than the fact that he is the youngest person since Sloan to lead the world’s largest automaker. Both, after all, took over a sprawling company that sported an impressive pedigree along with an immediate need for a good swift kick in the transmission. And both found themselves facing a confluence of surprisingly similar problems—ongoing corporate arrogance and an archaic administrate approach that was regularly unable to meet the ever-changing needs of its constituents and times, chief among them.
The ascension of Wagoner to GM’s top spot may have been unusually smooth for this often tumultuous operation, but it will undoubtedly prove no less critical than Sloan’s momentous tenure as the firm prepares for its future. For while the company’s extensive product lines and vast global reach and impressive statistical data remain quite formidable (taken together, they make it the world’s largest corporation in terms of sales) without the innovation and drive that marked Sloan’s 33year term in office they simply may not be enough to help Wagoner move it successfully from the 20th century into the 21st.