Ford can't afford to celebrate just yet

Ford can't afford to celebrate just yet
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll...09/1148/AUTO01

You know how far Ford Motor Co. has to go when it loses less money in
the first quarter and there's still an itch around town to start
chilling the champagne.

Understandable, but now isn't the time. Give folks leadership with
purpose, goals and a plan -- as opposed to the flailing and
finger-pointing issuing from the governor's office -- and they'll fall
on the news like starving men on a ham sandwich.

Alan Mulally will take guff for being Ford's $36 million man for as long
as he sits atop the Glass House. But if his incipient turnaround
actually delivers, it'll be worth every penny to Ford's shareholders,
its communities and, yes, the American auto industry.

Hold your fire, dear critic: This isn't an apologia for outsized
executive comp. It's acknowledgment that Chairman Bill Ford may have
been on to something when he fired himself back in September and
announced that a Boeing Co. lifer would become CEO.

No guarantees at Ford

No less a Wall Street curmudgeon than Citigroup's Jon Rogers declared in
a note to investors last week that Ford is "gaining traction in its
restructuring" with "solid" results and "improved" operating cash flow.
Let's hope so, considering that Mulally mortgaged the company, including
the Blue Oval, to raise cash for it all.

Of course one quarter isn't a trend to bolster the confidence of savvy,
would-be investors. That comes with stopping the slide in retail market
share, delivering a realistic contract with the United Auto Workers,
cutting costs aggressively, streamlining (and quickening) product
development.

There are no guarantees Ford will actually do any of that, though I
can't help but recall the old aphorism about the ability of an imminent
hanging to focus meandering minds. That Mulally has seen this movie
before, at a post-Sept. 11 Boeing, helps, too.

Competence trumps mojo

The good news is that Ford is delivering some black numbers outside
North America, including the chronically hapless Premier Automotive
Group (thanks mostly to Volvo and Land Rover), and that its quality is
improving.

The bad news is that it still doesn't have enough competitive products
in the right segments, the earnings calendar seems to turn faster than
its product development calendar and its marketing acumen often seems
stuck in a dull, unimaginative time warp.

Still, there's more direction, discipline and realism and less chaos and
confusion at Ford than six months ago. But the mojo's not back, and
that's OK.

Anyone who takes more than a moment to think about it would take
competence, execution and forward-motion in fixing the business over the
alternative. That would look more like things these days in Lansing --
rudderless, clueless and lost.