Have your say: May 2008
Many people write in to AROnline, and everyone has something good to contribute.
Many people write in to tell us how much they love the site, or they have something to say about its content, and sometimes merely to tell their story. So we've put another page up just for you - if you write in, and what you have to say is interesting, factual, or simply offering an opinion, we'll publish it here - and where possible, respond with some comments.
So, if you have something to say, get your thinking caps on...
Also, if you want to write, but don't want to see it here, mark it, 'not for publication...'
27 May
Stokes: In his defence
D.J.C. van Norden
I APPRECIATE the author’s insights regarding Lord Stokes and the complexity of the challenges that faced him.
There are many contributing factors to the tragic dissolution of the British motoring industry – and none more poignant than a remarkable lack of clarity regarding its historic, market-oriented assets (‘brand loyalties’) or the dynamic tension between the practical and aspirational needs of its evolving clientele (in the home market and internationally).
Lord Stokes, like Lord Lambury (Leonard Lord), was a capable man who had proved his mettle by keeping the business of business and the general ledger in respectable harmony. Neither proved to be men of particular vision regarding the vast value of brand equity and customer loyalty that their predecessors and peers had laboured to create. British Leyland’s Stokes, Lord, Edwardes, and Musgrove seemed to fall victim to that peculiar American business notion that advances ‘If you’re not growing, you’re dying.’ The great defining strength of the British motor heritage was the breadth, diversity, and appeal of its offering. Relative scarcity made them desirable and fueled the attention and appetites of an enthusiastic world market. But leading motoring executives ploughed energetically in the wrong direction. Instead of driving production volume up, they should have concentrated on how to sustain profitability and development whilst producing desirable, innovative, and attractive machines within relatively modest production quotas.
Lord Stokes and his colleagues are only guilty of being mortal and allowing status quo to displace creativity. Hastiness and blind ambition to expand market share eclipsed the higher priority of truly appreciating and understanding the market in its full context.
Volkswagen, BMW, the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, and Tata all perceive and understand something magical (and measurable) in the power and mystique of indelible British marques… quintessential characteristics that the late Peter Morgan may have been the last Englishman of the motoring industry to fully understand. These firms have each paid a king’s ransom for something uniquely and forever British; at present, VW and BMW have scaled production of their 'British’ brands to achieve profitability. What a pity that Lord Stokes couldn’t have cultivated that same handsome, simple objectivity.
For there is nothing lost that cannot be found, if sought. – Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene
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