Howes: Ford’s $1 billion profit signals turnaround
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DANIEL HOWES
In Ford Motor Co.’s surprisingly strong third-quarter numbers, namely a $1 billion profit, there are all sorts of people who could claim vindication.
It starts at the top.
The simple fact is that Ford wouldn’t be poised for a break-out — and the Ford family probably wouldn’t still control the company founded 106 years ago — had Executive Chairman Bill Ford Jr. and the board of directors failed to recruit CEO Alan Mulally three years ago. He’s driving an elegantly simple turnaround plan that is delivering profits in each of the automaker’s operating regions despite a deep global auto recession.
That is vindication.
Yes, Mulally and his core team (almost all of them Ford lifers) can claim signs of a legitimate turnaround, including the first operating profit in North America since 2005. Yes, Ford’s United Auto Workers members can trumpet the black numbers at the Blue Oval as proof of their wisdom in torpedoing another set of concessions.
But it’s the guy whose name is on the building and the outside directors who pushed him to woo an outsider to Dearborn from Boeing Co. that set in motion an industrial transformation now furnishing more compelling evidence in answer to a simple question: Can Ford compete?
With each passing quarter, each new financial statement and each new product launch, the answer appears to be an emphatic yes, whatever the asterisks about corporate debt loads, labor cost parity and the disadvantages of competing against cross-town rivals backed by the federal government.
Big? No, that’s huge.
Because it started with a plan and a vision for a new Ford that didn’t crystallize until a new CEO walked in the door. He took aim at distractions like Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, even Mazda, and conflicts like Ford’s regional silos; he galvanized existing leaders around the approach, cashiering very few; they used some $23 billion in borrowed money to finance a turnaround powered mostly by uncharacteristic discipline and well-executed cars and trucks.
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