In Business Week:
$$$ Amercica’s top B-Schools: Who made the list and why?
$$$ Putting a value on social networking sites: Are we on the tail-end of a Web 2.0 bubble?
$$$ High-tech disenfranchisement: Can we really trust untested electronic voting systems to minimize the error of casting and counting ballots?
$$$ Analog Devices Inc.: A godfather in stock option grant manipulation.
In Forbes:
$$$ Ex-Desperado Skilling awaits a possible 20-year sentence for orchestration of one of America’s biggest financial scandals.
$$$ IBM and Amazon in a legal battle over web patent infrigements made by the online retailer.
$$$ Third quarter losses for Ford Motor reach $5.8 billion; “Unacceptable,” says CEO Alan Mulally.
$$$ “Why Apple Won,” and some more insight into the managerial genius that is Steve Jobs.
In Fortune:
$$$ Natural talent or good old-fashioned hard work? The secrets of “greatness.”
$$$ Anwar Ibrahim’s thoughts on corporate accountability in the developing world.
$$$ Backdoor options: Amercan Tower’s own tactics for hiding above-average compensations for executives.
$$$ Wall Street has got it’s eyes on cable market: Why Comcast, Liberty Global and Charter Communications are the hot stocks to watch.
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This seems like as good a place to say this as any.
In all the media commentary on Ford’s sad sack fiscal performance, I see a lot of finger pointing at senior management, which is fine.
Doubtless the criticism of Ford management for having a bungled vision is valid. However, no one seems to address that beneath the high-level view, from the ground, it looks to me that Ford’s sales culture is broken.
Seriously. I’ve bought five cars in the last seven years, and each experience in a Ford dealership has been resoundingly negative. The salesmen are either hotshot Shooter McGavin wannabes who piss me off, or tired sadsacks like Gill from The Simpsons who bore me to death. Each of those five times, I haven’t bought a Ford because the salesmen, who are the rubber that meets the road in any business, suck.
Additional to that is that many of the eight Ford dealerships in my market have a reputation for sleazy, old-school, Willy Loman sales tactics that only work on stupid, naive people.
My point, from the perspective of a guy who has been selling stuff to people my whole life, and coaching others in how to sell is that if the dealership sales team as a global whole is as lame as it is in my market, then it doesn’t matter what vision Ford senior management has, they will fail to get people to buy their cars.