Globalisation has been a force of disruptive change over the last 10 years or so. Just look at smart phones & iPhones. And there's never been more pressure on the automotive industry - global disruptive changes - a quick read of my local Sydney newspaper revealing an astonishing infographic last Saturday (more here). heading for 60 million cars manufactured worldwide each year.
The previous year it was nudging over 50 million. And China, long the home of the Pigeon bicycle, now makes 25% of the global car total, ie more than Japan & Korea combined. I recall holidaying in China in 2005 with the family, then there were only 2 million cars in Beijing but I noticed a lot of foreign car companies had set up factories there - playing for the future. And the USA in the global car manufacturing scene? Dropping below India with just under 5% of world total.
And then the pace of technology introduction into cars seems to be accelerating - a couple of years ago when my significant other bought his last car, the thought of USB, Bluetooth & mp3 in your standard car was not on the horizon. Recently when I bought a budget subcompact - they all there.
But with technology comes complexity & the risks of more headaches - just ask Toyota. I must admit to being astonished that they only set up their global quality initiative after the controversy over the suddent acceleration problems. Solutions perhaps from Norman Bodek's - few months I ago I posted on his Zenjidoka concept of engaging front line service people in feeding back to design & manufacturing engineers about customer complaints.
So ASQ's Paul Borawski's interview on Ford with Bennie Fowler is interesting, as are the recent ASQ RSS news feed on Mark Field and more from Bennie Fowler on the GQRS, Global Quality Research System, on improving customer satisfaction by addressing things gone wrong.
Interestingly in the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference held in Boston in June 2011, Sameer Patel spoke of the change in putting the Big R into Customer Relationship Management & Market Dynamics. As Toyota found, with all the exploding social media technologies, like Facebook & Twitter it is no longer possible to isolate or ignore bad news. Just as Clay Shirky spoke of in his "Here Comes Everybody" - it's ridiculously easy to form groups - so we rapidly reach Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point.
However these technologies can provide the key to frontline research and can be utilised to rapidly address problems - however there's a deluge of data needing the ability to manage Unified Communications across the social media channels. The computer geeks like David Carr have an answer to that too - they call it Big Data & Analytics - again a theme at the Boston E2.0 conference.
So like Crisis being Danger & Opportunity - perhaps there exists the same in the car manufacturing industry - Opportunities to use Social Media, Big Data & Unified Communications in listening to & acting upon emerging issues before they become the crisis.
The previous year it was nudging over 50 million. And China, long the home of the Pigeon bicycle, now makes 25% of the global car total, ie more than Japan & Korea combined. I recall holidaying in China in 2005 with the family, then there were only 2 million cars in Beijing but I noticed a lot of foreign car companies had set up factories there - playing for the future. And the USA in the global car manufacturing scene? Dropping below India with just under 5% of world total.
And then the pace of technology introduction into cars seems to be accelerating - a couple of years ago when my significant other bought his last car, the thought of USB, Bluetooth & mp3 in your standard car was not on the horizon. Recently when I bought a budget subcompact - they all there.
But with technology comes complexity & the risks of more headaches - just ask Toyota. I must admit to being astonished that they only set up their global quality initiative after the controversy over the suddent acceleration problems. Solutions perhaps from Norman Bodek's - few months I ago I posted on his Zenjidoka concept of engaging front line service people in feeding back to design & manufacturing engineers about customer complaints.
So ASQ's Paul Borawski's interview on Ford with Bennie Fowler is interesting, as are the recent ASQ RSS news feed on Mark Field and more from Bennie Fowler on the GQRS, Global Quality Research System, on improving customer satisfaction by addressing things gone wrong.
Interestingly in the recent Enterprise 2.0 Conference held in Boston in June 2011, Sameer Patel spoke of the change in putting the Big R into Customer Relationship Management & Market Dynamics. As Toyota found, with all the exploding social media technologies, like Facebook & Twitter it is no longer possible to isolate or ignore bad news. Just as Clay Shirky spoke of in his "Here Comes Everybody" - it's ridiculously easy to form groups - so we rapidly reach Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point.
However these technologies can provide the key to frontline research and can be utilised to rapidly address problems - however there's a deluge of data needing the ability to manage Unified Communications across the social media channels. The computer geeks like David Carr have an answer to that too - they call it Big Data & Analytics - again a theme at the Boston E2.0 conference.
So like Crisis being Danger & Opportunity - perhaps there exists the same in the car manufacturing industry - Opportunities to use Social Media, Big Data & Unified Communications in listening to & acting upon emerging issues before they become the crisis.
