今日はビジネス・ウィークの記事紹介です。
GM破産の原因はいずこに？という観点から、GMの歴史を紐解いています。
今日は企業経営などに関する用語です。
- 最小限の管理下で ⇒ thinnest level of oversight
- 会社を引き継ぐ ⇒ take over the company
- 注目を集める ⇒ dominate landscape
【以下記事】
Who's to Blame for GM's Bankruptcy?
Just about everyone—from management and the UAW to government, consumers, the competition and the media, writes Wiliam J. Holstein
GM破産の責任は誰に？？
皆の責任だ － 経営者、UAW、政府、消費者、競合他社、メディア・・・
By William J. Holstein
Who is to blame for General Motors' bankruptcy?
GM破産の責任は誰に？
First of all, management. For most of its existence, GM was not really a centrally unified company in the modern sense. Founder Billy Durant smashed together different companies—Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac—and allowed them to compete with each other with only the thinnest level of oversight. Alfred P. Sloan, who took over the company in the 1920s, imposed a measure of discipline on these rival fiefdoms by creating more financial controls and a more rational positioning of each brand, with Chevrolet being the car for the masses and Cadillac being the car of the elite. But the company was still very decentralized.
何はともあれ、経営陣。その存在の多くの時期に渡り、GMは近代的な感覚での中央集中型の組織ではなかった。創立者のビリー・デュラントは異なる企業を合体させた（シボレー、ポンティアック、ビューイック、キャデラック）。そしてそれらを最小限の管理下で競争させた。1920年代に会社を引き継いだアルフレッド・P・スローンは、各社の財務管理を徹底し、より理論的なブランドを作って（シボレーは大型車、キャデラックはエリートなど）、競争原理に規律を与えた。しかし依然として会社は中央統括型にはなっていなかった。
Following World War II, this lumbering GM dominated the American automotive landscape, reaching 50.7% of the market in 1962. It didn't matter if GM was late to market with a feature or a design because "we had such enormous power that we could always steamroller everybody else," recalls Bob Lutz, the just retired product development chief who first joined GM in 1963.
第二次世界大戦後、この動きのにぶいGMはアメリカ車の注目を集めた。1962年には50.7％のシェアを獲得した。GMは市場の流行やデザインに遅れていても問題なかった。なぜなら「我々は大きな力を持っていて、他社を強引に押し切ることができたからだ」と1962年にGMに入社し、先日退職したばかりの元製品開発責任者ボブ・ルッツは言う。
NOT READY FOR TOYOTA
トヨタと戦う準備ができていなかった
Then there was labor, and management's decision over the decades to grant the United Auto Workers higher wages, medical benefits, and pensions with each contract negotiation. This helped to elevate the standard of living for many blue-collar Americans, but health-care costs would emerge as a major burden on GM, as would a confrontational standoff between management and labor.
その後、GMは従業員の待遇を改善する方針をとってきた。
Then there was overseas competition. GM simply was not ready to respond to Toyota Motor (TM) and other Japanese manufacturers when they began to gain serious ground in the early 1980s. Toyota, in particular, had developed a lean manufacturing system that was completely different from the mass-assembly-line techniques GM was still using, many decades after Henry Ford perfected them. GM's fractured structure meant that each division had its own manufacturing processes, its own parts, its own engineering, and its own stamping plants.
そして、1980年代にはトヨタや日本車が米国で利益を獲得し始めたが、GMは準備ができていなかった。特にトヨタの生産方式は全くことなるものであった。GMは以前として大量組立生産を行っており、各製造工程が部品や技術を持っている状況だった。
Hungry for jobs, U.S. states began to encourage Japanese manufacturers to locate plants, or so-called transplants, in their states. The Big Three figured that would saddle the Japanese with the same labor costs and the same labor problems they had. But they were wrong. The Japanese located in mostly southern and border states that were solidly anti-union. They hired younger, less expensive workers, and they created an entirely new relationship between management and labor. This led to an entirely new auto industry. The net effect was to rachet up the competitive pressures on Detroit, not ease them.
米国は日本の自動車製造業者を米国内に誘致して、雇用を確保しようとした。日本のメーカの多くは南部や国境付近の労働組合のない地域に工場を建て、若者や低賃金者を雇い、経営陣との新しい関係を構築した。その余波はデトロイトにまで及んだ。
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