Opel seems committed to continuing to set records, not in sales but in losses. This time the failure came from Steve Girsky, vice president of General Motors (GM) in statements to the German Financial Times, a man who was given the task of turning Opel around in Europe after being named chairman of the board supervision of Opel at the end of November.
And it didn't take long – just over two weeks to be precise – for GM's No. 2 to see that the strategic plan outlined for the German brand failed, “unfortunately, our plans to make Opel profitable this year didn't work” he said. the responsible, and who has already led the brand to revise its already low expectations for this year.
We remind you that in the last semester alone, Opel presented losses in the order of 300 million dollars, but if you want to have a broader view of the “thing” we can tell you that Opel has an accumulated loss of 1,600 million dollars in the last 12 months . A pace of damage and slippage that is the envy of the Portuguese Government…
In fact, many parallels could be established between the performance of the Portuguese economy and the performance of Opel. But let's see, both are in sharper decline for 10 years now – Portugal with apotheotic budget overruns and GM with pharaonic losses – and both experienced their most prosperous period until the end of the 1980s, from then onwards it was just “shots in the feet”. I remind you that, until a few decades ago, Opel was considered a direct rival to BMW and Mercedes-Benz.
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| The path will not be easy |
But looking again at the statements to the Financial Times, Steve Girsky points out as a way out of the crisis the Volkswagen model, which through its cost management, pricing strategy, market segmentation and consequent market penetration has managed to grow all the years old. And so far we can make comparisons: Opel is to Portugal what Volkswagen is to Germany. All so different but all so alike isn't it?
But leaving the comparisons for another time, in the words of Steve Girsky, the path is really segmental. "Other builders sell more than a brand", "if we can do the same, we will also prosper" believes the former banker, a 49-year-old American.
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| Credits: BBC |
Either way, the notice is left to navigation, either Mr Karl-Friedrich Strack, CEO of Opel appointed in April of this year and his team draw up a new plan, or they might as well start filling in the forms at the nearest job center …
What is your opinion? Do you think that greater integration between Chevrolet (in the role of Skoda) and Opel (in the role of VW) could be the solution to Opel's problems? If it is, we don't know, but Fiat is on the lookout…
Text: Guilherme Ferreira da Costa