Current New York international auto show, true April’s spectacular, highlights the universality of the three cornerstone principles of global competition:
1. Whatever they do, we do it cheap (or simply: “do it cheap”)
2. Whatever they do, we do it better (or simply: “do it better”)
3. We do something that they cannot do (in simple words: “make it unique”)
There is certainly a lesson to learn for all US automobile manufactures, technology leaders and policy makers, and it is utmost important to learn it quick in order to handle the challenges of our time and restore/preserve our techno-economic leadership in this strategically important market.
Realistically thinking, the first strategy (“do it cheap) is hardly feasible due to tremendous cost of living in the US (which includes such “heavy weights” as housing costs and medical expenses to name just a few) vs. major developing countries. These compounded costs are factored in the market price of all our product and services, rather limiting our competitive advantages on the global low-end markets.
Current auto show demonstrated tremendous progress made by South Korean automotive companies, especially noticeable in the light of the fact that their auto industry is relatively very young (it exists for about 30-40 years) comparing with our famous brand names, like Ford (tracing its roots back to 1903; in other words, its history spans for more than 100 years), Chrysler (1925) or General Motors (1908). Started at the low-end markets, South Korean automakers, such as Hyundai are currently successfully penetrating the mid-class and luxury segments (to see the gallery of the elegant and sophisticated Hyundai models refer to the video listed in reference section).
The winning strategies for the US should be considered (2) and (3) as listed above, namely: “do it better” and “make it unique”.
Do it better: in order to succeed in this strategy US automakers should overcome certain existing physiological stereotypes; there is a strong consumers’ perception of engineering brilliance, production quality and elegance of car body design associated mostly with European brands: notably, German automakers like Daimler-Benz, BMW, Audi, VW; also, Rolls-Royce/Bentley and Aston-Martin luxury brands from England; Ferrari, Lamborghini and Mazerrati sports car from Italy and wide spectra of cars from traditionally popular Japanese auto-manufactures: Honda, Nissan, Subaru and Toyota (even though the latter has been in trouble due to serious design flaw in certain models, causing the random acceleration).
Make it unique: this must be considered the dominant, winning strategy for the US global competition. Our techno-economic leadership is deeply rooted in the entrepreneurial spirit, engineering creativity and technology vision of American people. Global market is becoming increasingly talent-driven one. In order to succeed we should maintain and extend the talent pool in the utmost important math, engineering, technology and science area. US global competitiveness is not just a simple function of school drop-outs; it heavily depends on our ability to early identify, support and promote the highly gifted and talented math/sciences students; they present a national treasure of much higher importance than all material resources we have in our country. The future of US techno-economic and political leadership is tightly correlated with the percentage of our domestic math, science and engineering geniuses in the global allocation matrix.
Copyright © 2010 Alexander Bell
References
- New York international auto show, April 2010: US cars
- New York international auto show, April 2010: European cars
- New York international auto show, April 2010: Cars from Asia
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