Ford Motor

The following entry is the one originally submitted by the contributors. The previous version of this entry that appeared in the original printing of the encyclopedia was not the one submitted by the contributors and was mistakenly used by the Publisher. The entry was written by Drs. Efthimios Poulis and Konstantinos Poulis, and the Publisher apologizes for submitting the wrong version of this entry for publication.

Ford Motor Company started its operation in 1903 in Michigan State by Henry Ford and 11 of his partners. Their original capital was only $28,000 but this group of people would create one of the largest businesses in the world, one of the most popular American corporate icons, and one of the most popular brands of all times. In fact, 2008 was the year in which the company's famous Ford Model T celebrated its 100th anniversary; it is actually the car that made driving available to the masses. Since then, the company has produced more than 330 million vehicles and nowadays it ranks in the third position worldwide as far as the production of vehicles is concerned. These performance levels create annual sales figures that are easily comparable to many countries' Gross Domestic Product.

It is worth noting that at the time of the company's birth, there were 15 more vehicle manufacturers in Michigan State and 88 ones in the United States. However, until then, a vehicle was a premium product that addressed only a niche segment of the American market, i.e., the affluent consumers. It was Henry Ford who first believed the opposite and clearly stated that the car should be addressed to the masses. The premise behind this innovative thinking was that this was the only way to develop the stagnated market of car manufacturing further. His vision was to produce and sell a car at such a price that everybody would have the financial capacity to acquire. In this respect, he managed to reduce production costs by inventing the production line. This may sound like common logic today, but at that time, manufacturing a car lasted 12 hours. Through Ford's new technique, the manufacturing time was reduced to 93 minutes only. At the same time, he virtually doubled factory workers' salaries and established an 8-hour-per-day workload. The outcome of these transformations was simple: the company's employees could now afford buying a car. In parallel with these changes, he strived to convince governmental authorities to develop a system of roads that would cut across the states. As a result, the growth of car sales was phenomenal and by 1912, there were already 7,000 dealers of Ford vehicles in the United States. Therefore, among other achievements, Henry Ford can be also considered one of the pioneers of the franchising scheme.

An impressive feature for an automobile manufacturer is the fact that the company, almost since its inception, internationalized its activities and created Ford Motor Company of Canada in Ontario. Nowadays, it is represented in more than 200 countries on all continents selling vehicles of several types, employing almost 300,000 people, and having contracts with 60,000 suppliers. This globalized outlook of the firm is manifested in its expanded brand portfolio, too. After a wave of megamergers in the automobile industry, [Page 692]Ford Motor Company owns popular brands such as Lincoln, Mercury, Mazda, and Volvo.

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