Product details

The Ford case charts how the world's second largest automotive company attempts, primarily through the use of the Internet, to transform itself from an automotive manufacturer to becoming a service provider, able to offer customers the full range of automotive products and services to cover their entire transportation experience over time. Product and even technological innovations were no longer sustainable strategies: margins across the industry were rapidly shrinking; customers were turning in droves to Web-based automotive intermediaries who provided a fuller range of services with infinitely less hassle than traditional dealers could; and the principles and tools of customer relationship management (CRM) were rapidly supplanting the traditional, mass marketing approaches of the past. Something radical had to be one. The case shows the steps - strategic, marketing and technological - made by the company to try to shift from transactions to relationships, and from episodic contacts with mass market customers, to lifelong interactions with individual customers. The role of e-technology and partners is emphasised.