What was Henry Ford’s strategy for his Model T?

Why was it
successful in the beginning, but not successful later on?

In the early 1900s, cars were very new tools for accommodation in that
era. After the invention of car, people had shifted from using horses to use
the car instead. People needed cars as a new mean of transportation instead
of sitting on a train and car can cover longer distance in the rural area
without depending on a train. Cars were more dependable, ease to use, and
comfortable than using a horse. It had increased the demand of the
American and only wealthy people can brought cars in the early 1900.
Therefore, selling car in the market was a niche and blue ocean market in
that particular time.

Henry Ford had been manufacturing cars for American and knew the
demand of the Americans. He wanted every family to be able to own the
cars at the lower price which he needed to lower the cost of production. He
was able to come up with the idea and invented the first assembly line to
lower the time of production from 12 hours to 93 minutes. It minimized
the costs and maximized the productivity. His strategy on his car was to
use the cost leadership strategy which make the working-class Americans
affordable. His generic strategy supported business competitive advantage
on the basis of cost reduction and lower prices to attract customers. It
increased the economies of scale and had the technological advantages
from other competitors. The learning-curve of his company had much
more experienced than other to be able to acquire the early market.

His strategy was very effective and successful in the beginning. He was
able to satisfy the customer need where he named his product as a
common car for all common man. He had made a product that understand
the needs and even sold it in a lower price to make it affordable to
everyone which increase the volume of selling too. He had changed the
life of the American from using trains and horses to shift to cars in a
decade. His innovation was undeniable to inspire a lot of people in
following his strategy and doing an assembly line for other products.
However, his product was obviously too identical. It had only black color
and no other options. The products were later obsolete. People wanted
more choices of car and wanted to show car as one of the social status.
After the success of Ford in the first two decades, General Motors had
taken the throne away from Henry Ford. GM used the board differentiation
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to offer a wider array of products. Americans were gaining higher wages
and started valuing style and design, not only just lower prices. GM seized
the market and the volume of sale of Ford was dropped. Ford was
blindsided by his successful in the first decade and stuck on his cost
leadership strategy even his selling was dropping. When he realized that
his strategy didn’t work, it was already too late for him to take over the
throne again.

Was Henry Ford an effective general manager? Why or why

not?

Henry Ford was one of the first innovator and effective

general manager in his early days. He understood the needs of
his customer. He viewed the market optimistically that the
Americans need a car as a new mean of transportation. He
was able to make machine to change the life of people. With
his brilliant ideas, he also invented the assembly line to
minimize the cost and maximize the productivity which turn
out to be very successful. His assembly line was inspired to
the other company and make it one of the highest technology
in that era. Ford’s vision in the first era had earned many
successful and compliments over around him. He believed in
his strategy to be successful and stuck on his strategy forever.

In the second decade, his sales began to drop and his top
executive tried to warn him about his dire situation that GM
might seize the market if he didn’t change any strategy. He
ignored his team and denied the fact that he was losing. He
fired his top executive for giving such critics. His egoism had
ruined him far from his knowledge. He was blindsided by his
egoism and didn’t acknowledge any competitors to be able to
outcome him. Ford changed himself from a successful man to
an unsuccessful man. He was being arrogant and ignorant to
his team and didn’t even listen to his customer needs like he
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used to. Ford changed by his successful and his arrogant
brought him down. He didn’t believe that people would
change the need of cars. He didn’t realize that people wanted
more augmented and variety of products.

Ford changed from a successful man to be an unsuccessful

man. He obsolete himself and close his heart in listening to
other people. He didn’t change his strategy even though his
strategy wasn’t working. He had struck only on one
innovation to be successful and finally being arrogant on
selling only one product. He was too obsessed with cost-
cutting and after that his plant was shut down for 3 years due
to poor sell and not be able to gain advantage above GM. His
lesson was learned when everything was too late for him to
change.