Table of Contents
Introduction ................................................................................................................................................... 2
1.
General description ............................................................................................................................... 2
2.
SWOT ................................................................................................................................................... 3
Strengths.................................................................................................................................................... 3
Strong branding structure in China ....................................................................................................... 3
Environmental policies .......................................................................................................................... 4
Weaknesses ............................................................................................................................................... 4
Dependence on pickups and SUVs for profit ........................................................................................ 4
Technologies and investment in R&D .................................................................................................. 4
Opportunities ............................................................................................................................................. 4
Threats ....................................................................................................................................................... 4
3.
Internal environment ............................................................................................................................. 5
Corporate culture ....................................................................................................................................... 5
Corporate organization .............................................................................................................................. 5
Stocks price ............................................................................................................................................... 5
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................................... 5
Reference list ................................................................................................................................................. 6
APPENDICIES ............................................................................................................................................. 8
APPENDIX A ........................................................................................................................................... 8
APPENDIX B ........................................................................................................................................... 8
APPENDIX C ........................................................................................................................................... 8
Introduction
In the modern society where all the companies and corporations operate in the field of a global
business community it is important to analyze environment of these business units. Environment
of a company may be internal and external. This paper makes its objective to make an insight
into the internal structure of General Motors Company (GM) in terms of a SWOT strategic
technique that is used to understand and evaluate the strengths and weaknesses, opportunities
and threats of a chosen corporation. Furthermore, this report will examine the factors describing
the internal environment such as corporate culture, positive and negative changes occurred to the
price of General Motor’s stocks, and the structure of corporate organization inside the company.
1. General description
General Motors Company is the public multinational corporation that is commonly named just as
General Motors (GM). The company is headquartered in the city of Detroit, Michigan, the US. In
the year of 2018, General Motors accounted for 180 000 employees all around the world
(General Motors, 2019a).
The corporation has been operating in the field of automobile production for over 100 years,
having been founded by William C. Durant in 1908 (Fortune, 2019).
In the year of 2017, General Motors occupied the fifth position in the list of leading motor
vehicle manufacturers according to the number of produced units (6.88 million cars) (Statista,
2018). According to Paul (2017), in 2016 with the total production of 7.97 million vehicles
General Motors accounted for 8.8 per cent of the total cars production market of all around the
world.
The main competitors of General Motors can be divided into two main categories: located in and
outside the US. General Motors’ main competitors are the following corporations: Volkswagen
Group, Toyota and Ford. Ford being located in the US is the top competitor of General Motors.
The former has 12 000 more employees than the latter. Ford Motor Company was founded in the
year of 1903 with a headquarter in Deaborn, Michigan. The pickup trucks production is the field
of production where two giants compete the most (Owler, 2019).
Volkswagen Group with such a variety of brands as Audi, Porsche, Skoda, Lamborghini, Bugatti
and Volkswagen itself was the largest car manufacturer group in the world in 2016 with 10.10
million vehicles produced. The number accounted for 11.1 per cent of global production, while
General Motors produced only 7.97 million vehicles which stands for 8.1 per cent of globally
manufactured cars. For the last financial year Volkswagen Group generated $146 billion more
revenue compared to General Motors Company (Owler, 2019).
Toyota being on the second position of top car manufacturers of the world was founded in 1937
in Toyota city, Aichi Prefecture. The corporation made $138.7 billion more revenue than GM in
the year of 2016. (Owler, 2019).
General Motors Company includes the following brands: Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, Cadillac,
Holden (Australia), Baojun and others. Nameplates like Hummer and Pontiac were discontinued
(General Motors, 2019b).
Analyzing the main financial indicators of a company it is worthy to mention company’s
revenue. In 2018, the revenue of GM accounted for about $146 billion. That was about a 1.98 per
cent increase comparing to a previous financial year ($145.58 billion) (Macrotrends, 2019).
As Baldwin and Kim state (2010), in November 2010, General Motors went public and received
$20.1 billion in funding. On the day of the 6th of February in 2019, the stocks’ price of General
Motors was at the point of $39.56 each. During the last financial year the highest price was $45
and the lowest was $30.56. Generally, there were 478 million common stocks each sold for an
initial price of $33 each ($15.77 billion) and $4.35 billion in preferred stocks. It means that,
overall, each stock has made a $6.56 of a 26 per cent increase from the day of IPO till a present
date.
2. SWOT
According to Kenton (2019), SWOT analysis is used as a tool of evaluation of internal condition
of any kind of business. This SWOT analysis sets a goal to provide information regarding
General Motors as to its possible investors and as to its shareholders.
Strengths
Strong branding structure in China
General Motors’ key bone of production has been the poverty of its brands, especially in the
People’s Republic of China. In the year of 2015, General Motors and its joint ventures did sell
about 3.6 million vehicles in China. In China there are 11 partnership companies of General
Motors. Generally, they all account for 58,000 employees. The largest of these joint ventures is
Shanghai Automotive Corporation (SAIC) which is also the largest car manufacturer in the
People’s Republic of China. The strategy of setting up a joint venture in China by General
Motors has allowed the latter to go through the local entry barriers for foreign companies and to
succeed due to the ability of technologies provided from the side of GM (Jurevivius, 2016).
Environmental policies
General Motors has chosen a way of making eco-friendly vehicles that helps its customers to
reduce the usage of oil in a long term period. The corporation enrolled into EPA Energy Star
project established to cut energy costs in a process of production. Due to this program General
Motors could has save d $237 million by 2010 and reduced carbon emissions by 1.8 million
metric tons all over the US (Young, 2017).
Weaknesses
Dependence on pickups and SUVs for profit
Most of the profit the corporation obtains from the global market is being generated from selling
large vehicles and SUVs. The situation is like this even to the variety of crossovers, small and
mid-sized models offered by a range of brands of the corporation. This is because SUVs and
trucks do have higher margins in price than any another type of vehicles. This makes success of
General Motors in terms of high profits dependent on the fuel prices due to the fact that SUVs
and trucks consume more fuel than other types of vehicles (Taylor, 2013).
Technologies and investment in R&D
Even though General Motors Company has been making its operations for more than a century,
however the company still is implementing old technologies in its vehicles. The company will
not have a chance to become a leader at the global market until it starts using the most modern
technologies in cars production and development process. Even though General Motors spends
on Research and Development purposes, the company has not been able to compete with other
car manufacturers in terms of outcomes from R&D sector (Fern Fort University, no date).
Opportunities
Threats
3. Internal environment
Corporate culture
Corporate organization
Stocks price
Conclusion
Reference list
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2019].
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[Accessed 6 February 2019].
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[Accessed 6 February 2019].
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2019].
Owler (2019). General Motors's Competitors, Revenue, Number of Employees, Funding and
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Paul, K. (2017). Top 10 Car Group Manufacturers In The World In 2016 By Sales. Drivespark.
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Statista (2018). Leading Motor Vehicle Manufacturers Worldwide in 2017, Based on Global
Sales (in million units). Available from https://www.statista.com/statistics/275520/ranking-ofcar-manufacturers-based-on-global-sales/ [Accessed 6 February 2019].
Taylor, A. (2013). 10 Big Problems for General Motors. Fortune. Available from
http://fortune.com/2013/02/14/10-big-problems-for-general-motors/ [Accessed 6 February
2019].
Young, J. (2017). General Motors Company SWOT Analysis & Recommendations. Pannamore
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APPENDICIES
APPENDIX A
APPENDIX B
APPENDIX C