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Ford Motor Company

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Ford Motor Company
Kate

What Would You Do?
The case creates for options to choose from. Discuss at least three criteria the company should use to decide which four listed options are best and the reasons why each criterion should be used.

I think that if I was working for the Ford Motor company I would think about shutting down older plants. I would close down the plants mainly because they are not selling the cars that they are producing, therefore causing the ford motor company to loose profit. I would also move away from producing larger cars, and move more toward producing cars that are better on gas. I feel like the customer would buy a car that’s better on gas, before they buy a car that looks good. The larger cars would mostly cause the greatest decrease in the profit, because some people just cannot afford to spend a lot of money in gas. If Ford can produce a car that people can afford to buy and will not break their pockets at the gas pump, I believe that the ford will be able to sell more cars. The other option I would choose is to reduce the number of plants in Northern America, and utilize our international markets. It would make sense that because people in North America are not buying ford cars like they used to, and our international markets are doing very well, that we would continue our mass production with our international markets and limit our production over in North America.

In the light of the possibility that market conditions can and do change, discuss at least three examples of how the company should build-in flexibility to back up its decision-making process. One example of how the company should use flexibility to back up its decision making process is to keep options open. For example, Ford Company needs to identify what the problem is and how they can fix it. They need to be flexible and take into account the

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