Manufacturing Strategies of Ford Motor and Accenture

Manufacturing strategies

Table of Contents
Mission Objectives of Leading Companies 3
Strategies of the Companies to achieve Mission objectives 4
Bibliography and References 6
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Mission Objectives of Leading Companies – Ford Motor Company and Accenture
William Clifford Jr, Executive Chairman of Ford Motor Company, has highlighted that
becoming the world’s most trusted mobility company is Ford’s mission, with focus on two
important areas electrical vehicles and autonomous driving. However this focus will not be
only on technology, but on making the lives of people richer and safer. To this effect, Ford
has planned that by 2021 it would start the production of autonomous vehicles for
commercial. Further, the company is engaged in providing a range of mobility options like
micro-transit systems and traffic management software to help decongest the cities and
provide mobility access to more number of people. The company would be laying greater
emphasis on the production of electrified vehicles. It is noteworthy that the company has
several strengths including its technological capabilities to fulfil this mission. Further, the
company has been planning to aggressively reduce costs and reallocating capital to the
markets and products with the highest growth potential. Improving the operational efficiency
is another area the brand is working on. These efforts are in agreement with objectives of
the manufacturing strategies to achieve competitive advantage. As outlined by various
industry professionals, (Corrêa, 2001), the 21st century manufacturing strategies will be aimed
at organising, designing, developing and managing the manufacturing resources of the
company and then form manufacturing decisions in a consistent manner so as to have a mix
of performance characteristics which will make the company compete effectively in the
future. Ford’s plan of starting production of autonomous vehicles, making traffic
management systems and micro-transit systems are few of the measures which would
provide it advantage over other companies and are manufacturing measures as outlined by
experts (Pratap, 2019).
Similarly, a different company, from service sector, has also been identified as a key market
leader in its domain. Its Accenture which is global professional services company and a
leader in its sector. It provides a wide range of services and solutions in technology,
consulting, digital, strategy, and operations. In a recent industry report, Accenture has been
positioned as market leader in Cloud Services by Everest Group. As observed in the report,
Accenture has been appreciated for the vision for its services for cloud ERP, which contain
IP assets creation, client-centricity and innovation. To be cater to these missions on cloud
services, the company has relied on its key strengths like strong IP assets, notably
myConcerto with pre-configured solutions across multiple technologies including SAP and
Oracle, domain expertise and quality resources, consistently winning partner awards, spread
over geography, ability to put industry at the core, strong capabilities of ecosystem
consulting, pricing and becoming a partner in change. These attributes have provided
Accenture considerable advantage over its competitors to become a market leader in this
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segment. Further the company has combined its strengths of unmatched experience and
specialised skills across 40 industries and business functions, and works where technology
interacts with business so as to help its clients improve their performance. Another key
strength of the company has been its delivery network, which one of the largest delivery
networks in the world with 505000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries(Tsai,
2020).
Strategies of the Companies to achieve the mission objectives
Case study: Electric Vehicles , Ford Motor Company
As mentioned previously that Ford has outlined its mission to become one of the most
trusted mobility company of the world, it has taken several step in order to fulfil the mission
objectives. Some of these steps are described in the subsequent sections.
 Two key steps it has taken are aggressively reducing the costs and transferring
capital to the markets having the highest growth potential and products.
 Thirdly, the company is working on increasing its operational efficiency.
 It has further taken special steps to lead segment of electric vehicle production. A
special team called Team Edison has been formed by Ford for the purpose of
development and design , leading to that development, of electric vehicles operated
on battery. The aim of this team is to bring together technology, advanced
manufacturing capabilities and development of product. They are going to focus on
creating the leading edge electric vehicles for its customers.
 To further this initiative, a joint venture with Jotye has been entered by the company,
which is a pioneer in the Chinese market in the all electrical segment.
 Ford has outlined plans to develop and manufacture all electric vehicles and along
with that create a new sales and service network by means of the joint venture. This
would be to cater to the growing demand for new vehicles and the service
requirements arising thereby.
 Ford has aimed for the expansion of fleet electric vehicles to 40. 16 of these 40
vehicles would be all electric vehicle, by 2022.Next in line would be investment of
$11billion into its electrified vehicle by then.
 As noted by industry experts globally, the emphasis on environmental factors has
also been increased in the recent years. To cater to this requirement, Ford has
outlined that it will keep focus on reducing its environmental impact too.
 Another important factor is the role of suppliers. Ford has identified that an essential
requirement for growth is aligning the supply chain network with suppliers’ objectives.
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To fulfil this requirement, Ford has started training its suppliers for fulfilling
environmental and CSR objectives. Also, a special partnership program has been
started by the company related to environmental responsibility for the suppliers. In
this program suppliers from over 40 countries have been included by now (Pratap,
2019).
Jim Hackett, President and CEO, Ford Motor Company has taken a human centric approach
to unlock the potential of human resources of the company. He has identified that, in the
vehicle industry, the role and demand of skilled professionals is growing more central than
ever to business. He has focused on making Ford a mobility leader of the century. That is
why he has laid greater emphasis on training employees to acquire advanced skills. He
acknowledges that in the vehicle industry, the technologies are changing rapidly and hence
imparting training to the employees is required which can be done by advanced training
programs. Ford has created a culture of cooperation and learning that provide opportunities
of learning new skills and career growth.
Case Study- Cloud Services, Accenture
Accenture is a global professional services company that has been identified as a market
leader in cloud services in a report by Everest Group. The company has kept a vision for its
services for cloud ERP, which includes client-centricity, creation of IP assets and innovation.
To achieve its objectives, the company has taken several steps as well.
 It has utilised its strength like domain expertise and quality resources, strong IP
assets, winning partner awards consistently , geographic spread, strong ecosystem,
consulting capabilities, ability to put industry at the core, pricing and becoming a
change partner.
 Few of the steps taken by the company to attain this feat were building strong
partnerships, industry contextualized solutions and cloud-led approach.
 To build strong partnerships, Accenture made partnerships with hyperscalers
including Alibaba, Azure , AWS through joint go-to-market business groups that has
resulted in strengthening its cloud offerings.
 Secondly, Accenture worked on providing industry contextualised solutions by
focussing on the creation of solutions that combine and integrate cloud provider
solutions, Accenture’s unique industry solutions and third party SaaS solutions.
 Thirdly adopting a cloud-led approach. To implement this, the company led with a
cloud approach focused on transformation, by combining a mix of architectures,
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platforms and assets. This was backed by ongoing investments in next-generation
solutions.
 It was outlined in the report that as adoption of cloud is increasingly affecting the
business outcomes, providers must continue to highlight the value brought to the
business, by cloud transformations. They found that Accenture had performed well
on these accounts with a focus on delivering cloud implementation solutions that
achieve a digital business model.
Thus it is seen that with these measures Accenture has been able to deliver on it’s
clients’ requirements which include broad and deep cloud expertise, unique industry
solutions and large investments across multiple cloud providers (Tsai, 2020).
Bibliography and References
Businesswire.com. 2019. Accenture Recognized As Leader In Inaugural IDC Marketscape Report For
Worldwide Managed Cloud Services. [online] Available at:
<https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20191015005249/en/Accenture-Recognized-Leader-
Inaugural-IDC-MarketScape-Report> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
Accenture.com. n.d. Accenture's Journey To The Cloud. [online] Available at:
<https://www.accenture.com/hk-en/case-studies/about/journey-cloud-credential> [Accessed 23 March
2020].
Carey, N. and White, J., 2018. Ford Plans $11 Billion Investment, 40 Electrified Vehicles By 2022.
[online] www.reuters.com. Available at: <https://www.reuters.com/article/us-autoshow-detroit-ford-
motor/ford-plans-11-billion-investment-40-electrified-vehicles-by-2022-idUSKBN1F30YZ> [Accessed
23 March 2020].
Corrêa, H., 2001. Manufacturing Strategy - An Overview | Sciencedirect Topics. [online]
Sciencedirect.com. Available at: <https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/manufacturing-
strategy> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
Pratap, A., 2019. Ford Motors Business Strategy. [online] Notesmatic.com. Available at:
<https://notesmatic.com/2018/09/ford-motors-business-strategy/> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
Tsai, M., 2020. Accenture Positioned As Leader In Everest Group PEAK Matrix For Cloud Services
And Cloud ERP 2020 Reports. [online] Businesswire.com. Available at:
<https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200210005286/en/Accenture-Positioned-Leader-
Everest-Group-PEAK-Matrix> [Accessed 23 March 2020].
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