Out of the frying pan
I ran across this guest editorial recently, from around 2000, I believe. It was one of the early indicators of Daimler’s way of working, and was written by an anonymous employee.
One of the more innovative things about the old Chrysler was that we were one of the first auto companies to have satellite hook-ups at every facility (thus video-conferencing). There was an employee “news” show on an internal network called CEN (Chrysler Employee Network). This was a great service because it kept everyone abreast on industry news, and it reported the good, bad, and ugly within the company, not just propaganda. With the coming of Daimler, CEN disappeared.
The replacement for CEN is called DCTV. It mostly runs video of old Mercedes cars competing in open-wheel race events. Other fare includes videos showing our glorious Truck, Bus, Train and Plane operations overseas. (They’re all money losers). We see news blips, but only if they’re positive. If four vice-presidents left DCX for Ford and GM within 3 months, I doubt if I’d be bragging about it either.
No more reviews of competitors vehicles, no more industry news, no feeds from other facilities showing improvements to be implemented elsewhere. That was CEN.
A few months ago we were subjected to a near constant video extolling the virtues of the “Smart” mini-car. This was to be the future of city transport. They have not mentioned that just yesterday production schedules were cut from 140,000 to 100,000 and finally to 80,000. At these sales numbers, one has to wonder what the “break-even” point was.
I had to learn this info from a trade magazine.
sounds like the propaganda from ww11 when we where fighting the Germans and our boys were prisoners and had constant bombardment of propaganda to break their spirits. some things NEVER change. hmmm
Good thing a lot of that is over now. That said, when every action is accompanied by “Only Private Equity Could Do This,” when Chrysler moved just as fast (if not faster) in the 1990s… I mean, they invoke the “unique” properties of “private” ownership (if you can call it that — it’s not quite what Ayn Rand had in mind, I suspect) for things like selling a factory, which I recall lots of corporations doing…
We’re certainly better off than under Schrempp; but sometimes, with Campi and Nardelli’s very mixed signals, I’m not so sure we’re better off than under Zetsche. On the lighter side, the new owners NEVER bad-mouth Chrysler. Ever. That’s certainly a bonus.
I have to agree Dave. It seemed that Daimler took every opportunity to bad mouth Chrysler like a red headed step child. I don’t know if this was a defense mechanism to assert superiority (Chrysler did pretty much bail out mercedes when Diamler bought Chrysler) or if they just generally didn’t like the way american’s did things. Either way, under cerberus I’ve only ever heard positive things about chrysler. Though if I wanted to sell off an asset I’d say nice things about it too :)
Daimler even bad-mouthed Chrysler while trying to sell it, though that might have been to scare off “the wrong investors” (those who wouldn’t play ball by keeping Daimler’s overpriced parts and shared-platform stuff) — keeping in mind that their doing that is JUST MY SPECULATION.
Kerkorian would probably have been the best, overall… I don’t love him but he wouldn’t have inflicted Campi and that like on us.
Very true Dave. Seems like they couldn’t get rid of chrysler fast enough. I hope the other automakers file Diamler’s actions under the ‘do not follow’ category when dealing with your own business units.