General Motors is the largest
automaker by unit vehicle sales according to the data available for the
financial year ended 2009. General Motors was for a long time the world’s
largest corporation. Its rise and expansion is synonymous with the global
dominance of American companies in the automobile industry. The phenomenal
growth of the company may be attributed mainly to three business leaders of the
organization namely – Alfred.P.Sloan, Charles.F. Ketttering and Henri Ford.
Sloan is credited with the best application of the systems approach to
management ever seen in the corporate world. Ford is credited with the
innovation of the model of global sales leadership and Kettering is best known
for his design of the copper cooled engine that revolutionized the automobile
industry by means of product innovation and automotive design. The company is
also credited with the feat of introducing business education for executives
which later went on to become a university recognized part time degree program
in management at the Sloan School of Management, MIT.
The company sells its cars in
as many as 157 countries with production units in 31 countries. It has a work
force of 202,000 people and is famous for its brands of cars like Chevrolet,
Cadillac, Pontiac, Opel, Buick, Vauxhall and GMC. It is head quartered in
Detroit, Michigan. The board of directors of the company as on 2009 consists of
the following –
1. Daniel Akerson 2. Daniel
Amman. 3. Robert D. Krebs 4. Patricia .F.Russo 5.Ed Whitacre ( Chairman and
interim CEO).