How did a major corporation manage to turn itself around while Wall Street and others continued to predict its slow death? The answer may surprise you, and it provides a model for corporate transformation for any company or government agency operating in a world of accelerating change. The company is General Motors, and this book tells how it was able to change the way important decisions were made, leading to resurgence in business across its many product lines. At the beginning of the 1990s, GM was perceived by nearly everyone as falling behind its competitors at an alarming rate. By the beginning of the twenty-first century, though, the company had come storming back with successful new automobiles and new business concepts that captured new markets, while simultaneously holding on to many of its existing customers. What GM did is not just the story of a single automaker, but rather a compelling insight into an approach for any business organization that is faced with the need for a true transformation. As many companies have discovered, efforts at transformation too often fail. GM's successful transformation illustrates the importance of management's ability to change its mindset and make the tough decisions that revitalize business with bold new products and business concepts. At the heart of successful transformation is the imagination, courage and leadership required to visualize the kind of company an organization wants to become and then work toward that goal. With the destination set and understood by those who will need to implement the changes, decision-makers find it less difficult to overcome impediments to achieving their goal while finding creative ways of doing what may seem impossible. The lessons from GMs turnaround can help any business organization change and keep pace with today's turbulent marketplace.
Vince Barabba has had an unusual career in political campaign survey research, business market research, intelligence gathering, and knowledge and strategy development. He has helped Governors, Congressmen and US Presidents - as well as the Boards of several of America's leading corporations - take some critically important decisions. In each role, he has taken plenty of those decisions himself.
Founder and Chairman of the Board of Market Insight Corporation, Vince was until 2003 the General Manager, Corporate Strategy and Knowledge Development of General Motors, where he conceived and devised OnStar and MyProductAdvisor.
He twice served as Director of the U.S. Bureau of the Census (the only person to have been appointed by Presidents of different political parties) and was also Manager of Market Research for the Xerox Corporation and Director of Market Intelligence for Eastman Kodak. Vince has been inducted into the Market Research Hall of Fame. He has received the AMA's Parlin Award for leadership in the application of science to marketing research and the MIT/GM Henry Grady Weaver Award for individuals who have contributed the most to the advancement of theory and practice in Marketing Science.
