From: "John Macartney" <jonmac@ndirect.co.uk>
To: "Triumphs List" <triumphs@autox.team.net>
Subject: BMW/Rover
Date sent: Thu, 16 Mar 2000 00:16:52 -0000
Send reply to: "John Macartney" <jonmac@ndirect.co.uk>
Regardless of the rights or wrongs of possibly throwing upwards of 50,000+
people out of
work, the inescapable fact is that Land Rover makes profit. New Mini, if the
pundits are
to be believed and personal impressions are any guide, may well do the same -
but 'other
Rover' doesn't or hasn't convincingly done so for many years. Even back in the
late
sixties when British Leyland came into being, Longbridge and Cowley were
haemorrhaging
money and it was made clear by Leyland to the British government over a period
of probably
two years that it wasn't interested in the former BMC. Governmental pressure
was applied
purely to save jobs - and more importantly (for the government of the time)
votes.
BMW have invested massive sums already and there must surely come a time when
even an
organisation with that level of financial clout, decides to call things a day.
No
organisation can be reasonably expected to see 'the patient' gobbling up yet
more money
and at the same time turn in a GBP 900 million loss which is what its likely to
be for the
financial year just ended.
As suggested in a certain book, we've probably only ourselves to blame. It
makes one
wonder whether the link up with Honda wasn't such a bad idea after all.
Jonmac
John,very wise what you say, I'm through history not a big friend of Germany,but
on the other hand BMW is not the Salvation Army. I feel very sorry
for the Rover workforce, but put yourself in the skin of the BMW
workers struggeling for years to cover the Rover losses and the
BMW management had to prevent social unrest in their own house
at any price. Understand that BMW is at world scale a very small
company and they had to make a decision before they go down the
drain. In our days there is no place for sentiments in business if
you want to survive and there is unfortunetely no room anymore for
human feelings. Remember when some years ago DASA (Daimler-
Benz) closed the FOKKER aircraft factory and a few thousand of
very high quality workers were made redundant. And FOKKER
produced one of the best aircraft in the world, but was not able to
cope with the aggressive sales campaign of the big ones.
No one should forget that British-Leyland played the same game
in Belgium some years ago, but at a smaller scale. As soon as the
U.K. joined the Euro-Market and import taxes were abolished for
them they closed the Triumph assembly lines in Belgium and the
whole workforce ended up on the street.
If Land Rover is not drasticly improving the Quality and Service of
their civil products, it will become very hard for them too to keep
their clientele. My experience with Land Rover and their Service is
rather negative and they will have to make a very good offer to me
before I buy again. Today there is only one guarantee to stay in
business, make a better product than your competitor and offer a
good service. This of course can only be achieved via a motivated
and dedicated workforce. British government and managers start
thinking.
My 2 Pennies
Jean (from the rest of Europe)
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