I was pleased to
read the New York Times recent article “Tata Motors Finds Success in Jaguar LandRover”.
The article
describes the turnaround of the troubled England based manufacturer of Jaguars
and Land Rovers by Tata Motors an automobile manufacturer headquartered in
India.
Tata purchased the
company from Ford Motor Company in 2008.
The sad aspect of
this story is that an Indian automobile manufacturer could fix and turnaround
this complex operation but the venerable Ford Motor Company could not.
Surprisingly, this
may be an indication of some weakness in Ford's management ability.
Allegedly foreign
manufacturing operations in developing countries are not capable of matching
the management abilities of USA companies.
Can Ford's failure
in this regard, be applied to studying the weakness in the USA's overall
manufacturing capability?