Succeeding in the alliance game

It was General Motors' Arvin F. Mueller, Chairperson of the SAE 2001 World Congress, who came up with “Succeeding in the Alliance Game” as the theme for the March 5-8 automotive engineering event in Detroit.

Even with the vast resources that General Motors Corp. has at its disposal, the world's largest automaker believes it needs help from other OEMs to get along. If that is so, what must the Fujis, Fiats, and Fords of the world think? The same thing, of course, which is why they and every other major automaker have forged alliances of one type or another. This article takes a brief look at automotive industry alliances, which will be the subject of the Congress Blue Ribbon Panel on March 8, and provides a quick overview of other activities planned for the week.

An alliance, according to the Arvin Mueller dictionary, is “any relationship that is formed to bring benefit to both parties or all parties. It can be between OEMs or OEMs and suppliers-or any combination thereof. It can vary from full ownership to zero equity-and, frankly, sometimes the ones with zero equity are more successful than ones with a lot of equity. My point is equity can be, but is not the only, answer. It really gets down to developing a trusting relationship and generating mutual benefit.”