{"id":22000,"date":"2011-06-28T14:00:48","date_gmt":"2011-06-28T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/?p=21844"},"modified":"2011-06-28T14:00:48","modified_gmt":"2011-06-28T18:00:48","slug":"ford-reaches-a-crossroads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/2011\/06\/28\/ford-reaches-a-crossroads\/","title":{"rendered":"Ford Reaches a Crossroads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"post_title\" href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/June\/ford-reaches-a-crossroads.html\">Ford Reaches a Crossroads<\/a><\/p>\n<p>by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/investment-experts\/justin-dove-archive.html\" >Justin Dove<\/a>, <em>Investment U<\/em> Research<br \/>\nTuesday, June 28, 2011<\/p>\n<p>People who follow <strong>Ford<\/strong> (NYSE: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/finance?q=NYSE:F\" >F<\/a>) were dealt a big surprise  last week by some negative press.<\/p>\n<p>Ford fell 18 spots to 23rd in this year&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/businesscenter.jdpower.com\/JDPAContent\/CorpComm\/News\/content\/Releases\/pdf\/2011089-uiqs.pdf\" >J.D.  Power and Associates 2011 Initial Quality Study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Ford was ranked fifth last year and was the mainstream brand  with fewest defects. Ford had exceeded industry averages in quality each year  since 2006.<\/p>\n<p>There&#8217;s no coincidence that it was also President and CEO Alan  Mullaly&#8217;s first year with the company&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Mullaly&#8217;s Reputation with Boeing and Ford <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Mullaly built his own strong reputation as the CEO at  Boeing. Then he <a href=\"http:\/\/decidebetter.com\/Media\/ManufDigital_030710_Ford.pdf\" >added to this  reputation<\/a> with the way he handled Ford through the recession. Ford was the  only company of the &#8220;Big Three&#8221; that didn&#8217;t take federal aid and still made a  profit in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>Ford&#8217;s stock fell sharply in the financial crisis to as low  as $1.58 per share. Since then, it&#8217;s peaked at $18.65 per share this past  January, much higher than its pre-recession value that hovered around $6 per  share.<\/p>\n<p>So how did Ford fall so far in quality?<\/p>\n<p>It appears there is an array of problems with the MyFord  Touch and MyLincoln Touch systems Ford has recently rolled out. While Ford Sync  helped sales and revenue, these new touchscreen systems have become a burden  for the automaker over the past year.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/news.consumerreports.org\/cars\/2010\/12\/myford-ford-edge-mylincoln-touch-lincoln-mkx-sync-a-touch-of-intuition-or-insanity.html\" >Consumer  Reports blasted the systems<\/a> last December and <a href=\"http:\/\/news.consumerreports.org\/cars\/2011\/06\/buyers-unhappy-with-myford-touch.html\" >reiterated  the sentiment<\/a> this month, calling the systems &#8220;cumbersome and distracting.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Despite Touchscreen Tech Hiccups, Ford Continues Consumer Innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Despite the hiccups with new technology, some appear to be  high on Ford over the long term:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/articles\/169060\/20110624\/ford-autos-embrace-mobile-app-integration.htm\"><em>International Business Times<\/em><\/a> article, &#8220;Responding to increasing consumer  demand for mobile app use in vehicles, Ford is hiring top tech execs and  engineers.&#8221; While rolling new technology too quickly hurt Ford with MyFord  Touch, the company is showing strong innovation and seems to be carving out a niche  for tech-savvy customers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Earlier this month <a href=\"http:\/\/corporate.ford.com\/investors\/investor-news\/investor-news-detail\/pr-ford-middecade-outlook-calls-for-34748\" >Ford  announced<\/a> it was going to vamp up its efforts overseas, especially in Asia.  They claim to expect overseas sales to increase by 50 percent over the next  five years. The global market has been an issue for Ford as competitors like  General Motors have overtaken them in Asia and other markets.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It appears that Ford is at a crossroads. Growth has been  strong, but quality slipped this year. It could be a case of Ford spreading  itself too thin. Trying to innovate in technology and increase efforts abroad  may have been too aggressive over the past year.<\/p>\n<p>Mulally has a rock-solid track record though, and this situation  will likely serve as a wake-up call to the giant auto manufacturer. Ford could continue  to have a very strong decade if it can improve the implementation of new  technology and reach the lofty expectations for Asia and abroad.<\/p>\n<p>Good investing,<\/p>\n<p>Justin Dove<\/p>\n<div class=\"feedflare\">\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:V_sGLiPBpWU\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:V_sGLiPBpWU\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:gIN9vFwOqvQ\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:gIN9vFwOqvQ\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?a=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:F7zBnMyn0Lo\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/InvestmentU?i=N1Quk_iXYW8:Dnxr6bHrhHI:F7zBnMyn0Lo\" border=\"0\"><\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/InvestmentU\/~4\/N1Quk_iXYW8\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So how did Ford fall so far in quality? It appears there is an array of problems with the MyFord Touch and MyLincoln Touch systems Ford has recently rolled out and have become a burden for the automaker over the past year&#8230; <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.investmentu.com\/2011\/June\/ford-reaches-a-crossroads.html\">Ford Reaches a Crossroads&#8230; &gt;&gt;<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/fx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}