Meet the New Man at the Helm: Sergio Marchionne
Saturday, June 13th, 2009
For the new chief executive, steering the new Chrysler to help generate more profits for Fiat is the objective of this acquisition. Being given the controlling interest of Chrysler, the merger of both car companies are upbeat that they can get by the sagging fortunes that befell the U.S. car company.
Calling it a new season of capitalism, Marchionne is no stranger to business challenges. He was able to pull it off in 2004 when he took over Fiat and now, expectations are high that he will be able to pull it off again. Actually he has already started, assigning top Fiat managers in Detroit last week. This is seen as the preliminary moves to which a whole lot more is expected in the following months.
“Marchionne knows he has to race against time,” the Corriere della Sera newspaper of Milan explained. “He knows that when the debts are eliminated, the costs reduced to the levels of Japanese competitors with factories in the United States, then miracles of technology and marketing have to be performed to give back life to a company that in the last six months has almost halved its sales and which, even before the financial crisis, saw its share of the U.S. market fall from 15 percent to 10 percent.”
(Source) Washington Times
Tags: business challenges, capitalism, car companies, car company, debts, Fiat, financial crisis, helm, japanese competitors, marchionne, miracles, new man, race against time