Finally GM Makes A Smart Business Decision

written by Jouran Crosby

GM thus far has made poor decision after poor decision with the worst being listening to government bureaucracy and going to bankruptcy court to settle its business differences, but that's another blog. GM today announced the sale of Saab which will transfer ownership back into the

hands of a Swedish company. Prior to GM purchasing Saab, Saab was a Swedish owned organization that made great quality products which diminished after Greedy Motors purchased the firm two decades ago. The interesting question now is what will the new owners at Koenigsegg do to revitalize the brand and raise its profile back to the prominence it once boasted.

Koenigsegg is a high end sports car manufacturer that, according to Yahoo News Article (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090616/ts_nm/us_gm_saab) is highly obsessed with quality and sells cars that have an average ticker price of $1,000,000 (see picture below). I don't believe you will see Saab's coming off the assembly line looking like this in mass production, however, I can see Saab getting an performance and quality overhaul in the next few

years which will allow them to rival other strong foreign brands (i.e. the Germans). I hate to sound anti-American, but if Saab is going to turn it around, they can't focus on a business structure that aims to build a product that Americans like; the focus should be to build a product that the rest of the world will embrace. When it comes to cars, the average American wants to buy a label and that label generally carries a lapel with a home based outside of our coastlines. I guess when American manufacturing is more obsessed with quantity over quality, trust in the product is lost. Until this business practice changes (which I don't see that happening anytime soon), Americans just wont trust American made autos.

Congratulations GM on sending the prodigal son back home; now the ball is in your court Koenigsegg. There's no pressure to excel, heck the bar is so low any improvement will be better than what's out right now. By the way, yes I come from a household that was a former Saab Owner prior to GM's purchase of the company back in 1990.