General Motors underscored its support for troubled European brand Opel when the new management board of Adam Opel hosted several hundred business partners from trade and finance at its Ruesselsheim headquarters.
The aim of the event was to introduce the new management board members and to unveil the key points of the future program ‘Drive Opel 2022’, GM said in a statement.
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Opel supervisory board chairman Stephen Girsky, Opel/Vauxhall deputy chairman Thomas Sedran and works council chairman Wolfgang Schaefer-Klug were also present.
Girsky once again underscored GM’s support for Opel. “Opel is the third biggest brand in the global GM portfolio and the third largest brand in the European market. Each year Opel sells well over a million cars. We are confident that the new leadership team and our long-term strategy ‘Drive Opel 2022’ will return the company to its old strength. We’re working hard and every day we’re getting better.”
The Opel/Vauxhall sales, marketing and aftersales chief, Alfred Rieck, presented details of the revitalisation plan for the 150 year old brand, including new soccer sponsoring activities.
Engineering chief Michael F. Ableson discussed the product offensive of the company: “With cars like the Mokka and the ADAM we are entering new segments that promise growth. We are confident of the success of our product offensive with 23 new models and 13 new engines by 2016.”
There was much applause for the chic urban car, the ADAM, which makes its debut around the end of September at the Paris Motor Show.
“This is exactly the car we need,” said Thomas Bieling, chairman of the association of German Opel dealers. “It represents the essence of the brand: creativity, great design and lots of innovation. And in addition top quality from our German Eisenach plant. With these vehicles the company will be on the track to success again.”
”We are making a commitment to Opel and a commitment to Europe,” Girsky told the New York Times in a phone interview after the meeting. ”But I don’t want to leave anyone with the impression that we will be satisfied continuing to lose the amount of money we are losing.”
Girsky declined to say whether further plant closures were being considered but said Opel was preparing to make ”significant” reductions in its salaried work force. ”We think there is opportunity to take significant people out of the administrative functions,” he said. ”And we’re taking out as many chiefs as Indians.”
Girsky said GM was grappling with how to better use its factories in Europe, possibly by adding products like Chevrolet vehicles to its production lines.”There are opportunities to increase production,” he told the paper. ”We are exploring a non-Opel branded product coming into traditional G. facilities in Europe.”
But one German auto analyst told the NYT GM could not fix Opel without sizable reductions in plant capacity and hourly employees.
”The next step must be that GM finally looks the union in the eye and says, ‘This is what’s going to happen in the future,’ ” said Ferdinand Dudenhoffer, a professor at the University of Duisburg-Essen who follows the German car industry.
Girsky told the New York Times talks with union leaders were continuing and he compared the discussions to how GM shared its internal financial problems with the United Automobile Workers to gain concessions on health care and wages in the United States.
”We are doing the same thing with the union here that we did in the US which is transparency,” he said. ”The facts are not good, but you need to know them.”
Girsky, the interim Opel CEO, said he was recruiting a permanent chief executive for the unit from outside the company and hoped to hire someone by the end of this year.
Until then, Girsky is pushing Opel officials to tighten controls on expenses, the report said. He has demanded reductions in costly inventories of unsold vehicles. And he has required that any purchase order of more than EUR20,000 (US$26,142) be submitted to him for approval.
He said the biggest challenge that Opel faced was changing an entrenched attitude about losing money on operations.
”We’re trying to change the culture here,” he said. ”And it’s making some people uncomfortable because you’re putting restraints on an organisation that didn’t use to have restraints.”
Girsky declined to put a price tag on the overall new product programme but said it underscored GM’s commitment to the region. ”Europe is 25% of global sales,” he said. ”That is why it is important to us.”
The Opel dealer group’s Bieling told the New York Times the new products were essential to dealers struggling to stay in business.
”That they are investing so much in new products, I consider a good sign. It’s also a positive sign that they are talking about restructuring measures that should have been done years ago.”
