The Polk Blog

My major take-away from last night's World Congress presentation was the sharp role reversal between guest speakers Yoshimi Inaba, President and COO of Toyota Motor North America, Inc., and Mark Reuss, President of GM North America.

Mr. Inaba spoke first about Toyota's recent successes and challenges. He calmly and confidently highlighted their current and future products, large R & D investment and employee charitable volunteer activities. The audience was left with an impression of a bright future for Toyota in North America.

Mr. Reuss then took the podium and explained the sense of urgency and renewed customer focus at GM. He noted the irony that the same government once concerned about GM controlling too much of the U.S. automotive market, now controls GM. Mr. Reuss covered current and future product and outlined the recovery steps already in place at GM.

It was interesting that GM, who once enjoyed over 50% of the U.S. market, is now behaving like a new entrant OEM by actions such as encouraging engineers to drive parts to stranded customers and having its president interface with the public via Facebook. Through various reasons such as insular management, quality issues and complacent dealers, GM basically handed their market share dominance to the imports over the years.

I was impressed with the passion and commitment of Mr. Reuss, but can't help but wonder if it's too little, too late for GM. They have some great new products and the new, customer focused attitude is refreshing; but will the North American consumer be drawn from their imports back into Chevy, Buick, Cadillac or GMC vehicles going forward? As you ponder that question, consider the fact that of the 16 Polk Automotive Loyalty Awards presented last night, import OEMs captured 13 categories, Ford 2, Chrysler 1 and General Motors 0.

Posted by James Dimond, Vice President of Global Network Planning, Polk (01.13.2010)