GM also needs to excite customers
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CEO Dan Akerson's view of what General Motors needs to rectify isn't wrong ("Akerson's goal: Faster, leaner, smarter," Dec. 10).
As a dealer who lives with currency issues, I find it hard to understand how certain GM cars can be priced $15,000 more in Canada than in the United States with the Canadian dollar at par or above the greenback. Even with the overpricing, incentives on the specific vehicles are nonexistent when compared with the U.S. incentives.
Every market has its own issues, but if Akerson believes it prudent to support only the most profitable markets, I fear GM executives would need a much more sophisticated understanding of the real costs of individual products and currency exchange than they presently have.
Akerson's goals of fixing information technology, profitability responsibilities and costs of development will not be the total answer.
Having fewer platforms if it leads only to more similar, somewhat boring cars, with clones of each platform in every brand GM sells, will not enthuse customers. The quality of GM's product today is world class, but the inability to design consumer must-haves will be the difference between success and failure.
All the great accounting and IT systems in the world won't create demand from the consumer.
