Monday, February 4, 2013

Model A to Z of failure...

...rather of failure in terms of product innovation!

Alan Mulally may well be on his way to driving Ford out of its problems, innovatively sans any grants from the Fed, but that really doesn’t imply a century sans a single error at innovation! Ford’s Model A and Edsel are two cases proving the point. Ford’s decision to halt the production of Model A (as it was preparing the launch of its first low-priced V8) in 1932, cost it millions in dollar revenues. Why? Introduced in 1927, Model A was the second most popular product from Ford’s stable after Model T. Then came Edsel in 1952, which proved a bigger commercial failure, as the product wasn’t able to match buyers’ expectations after the success of the Thunderbird model. The car was positioned against GM’s Oldsmobile. But the old & conventional Ford design and more importantly, the name which resembled an image of a tractor (Edson) finally resulted in cooking up a complete product failure in the US automobile market.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.
An Initiative of IIPM, Malay Chaudhuri
and Arindam Chaudhuri (Renowned Management Guru and Economist).

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