GM Shuffles the Executive Deck Chairs Again as February Sales .
It was only early October when Susan Docherty took over the role of VP of sales and marketing However due to CEO Ed Whitacre s intense desire to quickly improve sales at GM and the lack of any such result over the past 4 or 5 months half her title sales now belongs to Mark Reuss who already has the title of President of GM North America For February 2010 GM reported a sales increase of only 11 4 and sales were down compared to the previous month The increase is considered a disappointment because it was up against a very gloomy 2009 result 53 Go inside those numbers further and it is hard to miss the return of the fleet
sales which are notorious for having very low margins up 114 Elsewhere in the industry Ford was up 43 and for the first time in over a decade sold more cars than GM Toyota which had a very bad monthly publicly was the only automaker to report a loss but suffered a less than expected 8 9 drop off 6 less than January Other notables Honda and Hyundai both improved in the low double digits 13 11 and apparently Chrysler is still selling automobiles out there somewhere as well Part of the weakness in the sales and ultimately the profitability at GM is at Cadillac or at least from traditional Cadillac If it were not for a rebadged Equinox masquerading as the new SRX while stealing sales from Chevy and GMC Caddy would have been off 20 The CTS DTS and STS were all down for the month The new SRX was up 541 on 3 542 units sold As a solution to this problem GM announced sweeping new changes in the way Cadillac does business and is accelerating new products to market the dimissal or rather the demotion of Cadillac general manager Bryan Nesbitt as well as a plethora of other management changes elsewhere in the company Warning do not click the link lest you be sucked into the vortex of shakeup cliches Of interest Bryan Nesbitt came to GM as a Bob Lutz hire from Chrysler he was the designer of the PT Cruiser and had found his star rising along with Bob s during GM s recent troubles It would seem that without Lutz s presence at the company he has been pushed to the side somewhat Mark Reuss explained the need for changes this way “It’s become extremely clear to me since taking this role that there is a better way to structure this organization It would seem that Mark Reuss has quickly become a force behind Ed Whitacre s leadership and is reshaping the company as he sees fit For what it is worth I think Mark is the finally the right guy at the right time for GM Now if they could just find a way to get rid of the Opel mess stop with all the drama at the executive level and get on with the business of making and selling cars for a profit that would be fine with me too Article did not appear at gm volt com busy week
Tags: 5 months, cars, ceo, decade, disappointment, double digits, ed whitacre, fleet sales, ford, gm, honda, hyundai, intense desire, margins, north america, notables, reuss, susan docherty, toyota, Uncategorized, Uncategorized, vp
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