Volkswagen AG is a German automobile group, which produces a wide range of cars, vans, motorcycles, and trucks. The company's headquarters is located in Wolfsburg, Germany. In 1934 there was a meeting in Berlin between Jacob Berlin - the commercial director of Daimler-Benz - and the new Chancellor of Germany Adolf Hitler. Adolf came up with an idea of creating the "people's car" that would be reliable, sturdy and affordable. One year after this meeting, the team had a finished product, thanks to designer Ferdinand Porsche. Very soon the company built the largest car-manufacturing factory in Europe back in the late 30’s. According to the 2014 Annual report, VW now has factories of the brand are scattered in 17 countries around the world.
The …show more content…
In fact, its corporate structure looks like General Motors in 1920-1970’s, i.e. (citation) VW can easily be compared to what was once the largest and the most profitable corporation in the world. The company is not in a danger that someone will copy or imitate its structure. Most of the competitors are not aware of their methods of work. Moreover, according to the traditional scale of business schools VW can be determined something like a productive madman. Globally, there are a shocking amount of 549,300 people working on the Group.(citation) Fortune magazine put them on the eighth place in the list of the world's largest employers behind giants such as Walmart and Chinese postal service. VW has the same number of staff as General Motors (213,000), Ford (164,000) and Fiat-Chrysler (197,000) combined all together. Meanwhile, three of the above monsters manufactured 19 million cars last year whereas VW released "only" 8.5 …show more content…
During 60’s GM had more than 700,000 employees, extreme vertical integration and the biggest profits in the world. Vaunted GM President Alfred Sloan, who ran the company from 1923 to 1956, has always fought against the central management. He kept General Motors decentralized until his retirement. Then the company opened their doors to graduates of business schools. They immediately embarked on the policy of efficiency and collaboration and since then the company has been rolling downhill. The principle of top-down and the command-administrative system fettered GM and continue to do it until now. Meanwhile, VW is controlled directly from Sloan's instructions and his corporate structure gives him an invaluable advantage. It does not matter to what extent competitors will streamline, reduce costs, attract third parties or create alliances; they will probably never overcome the strengths of VW. It is interesting how many competitors do know what they are fighting
The …show more content…
In fact, its corporate structure looks like General Motors in 1920-1970’s, i.e. (citation) VW can easily be compared to what was once the largest and the most profitable corporation in the world. The company is not in a danger that someone will copy or imitate its structure. Most of the competitors are not aware of their methods of work. Moreover, according to the traditional scale of business schools VW can be determined something like a productive madman. Globally, there are a shocking amount of 549,300 people working on the Group.(citation) Fortune magazine put them on the eighth place in the list of the world's largest employers behind giants such as Walmart and Chinese postal service. VW has the same number of staff as General Motors (213,000), Ford (164,000) and Fiat-Chrysler (197,000) combined all together. Meanwhile, three of the above monsters manufactured 19 million cars last year whereas VW released "only" 8.5 …show more content…
During 60’s GM had more than 700,000 employees, extreme vertical integration and the biggest profits in the world. Vaunted GM President Alfred Sloan, who ran the company from 1923 to 1956, has always fought against the central management. He kept General Motors decentralized until his retirement. Then the company opened their doors to graduates of business schools. They immediately embarked on the policy of efficiency and collaboration and since then the company has been rolling downhill. The principle of top-down and the command-administrative system fettered GM and continue to do it until now. Meanwhile, VW is controlled directly from Sloan's instructions and his corporate structure gives him an invaluable advantage. It does not matter to what extent competitors will streamline, reduce costs, attract third parties or create alliances; they will probably never overcome the strengths of VW. It is interesting how many competitors do know what they are fighting