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The Case
Over the last two decades, General Motors' U.S. market penetration declined more than 10%, while competitive pressures from both domestic and foreign automakers increased significantly. Given that the U.S. constitutes a lion's share of GM's business, the company went through a series of reorganizations to better align itself to compete. But the move left employees confused about GM's overall business goals and how they could contribute to improving business performance. Internal research revealed "better communications" as the number one improvement employees said they'd make if they were running the company.
The Strategy
In an effort to keep its employees better informed, GM has ramped up its internal communications staffing, hiring more than 100 "business integrators" in the past year and a half (PRN, March 27). As a next step, this team has developed a "scorecard" system to audit the internal communications process, measure its effectiveness and pinpoint areas in need of improvement. The ultimate goal is to engage employees to improve business performance.
Benchmarking
To shore up its competitive intelligence, GM hosted a two-day benchmarking symposium in February 1998 to explore the best practices of other successful companies. Participants included heavy-hitters such as 3M, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Motorola, Royal Bank of Canada, Southwest Airlines and others. Six of...