IBM's Global Hold

On Feb. 5, 1924, Thomas Watson Sr. changed the name of the company he ran from Computing-Tabulating-Recording to International Business Machines. The change reflected Watson's ambitions rather than reality. C-T-R operated only in the U.S. and Canada. But since the name change, IBM has been at the forefront of each new wave in the globalization of business—from international to multinational, and now to the next new thing. For three years, IBM has been striving to become what it calls a "globally integrated enterprise." Now, the strategy is finally starting to click.

The strongest evidence that IBM's big bet is paying off came a few weeks ago when it announced its second-quarter results. Revenues were up a strong 9%, to $23.8 billion. Every division reported healthy growth, including the long-troubled IT services group, where revenues rose 10%. But confirmation that the strategy is succeeding trickles in almost every day with announcements of major IT services contract wins in India or Russia. No wonder IBM's stock, trading at about $112, has risen by 50% over the past year—even after pulling back some in the market's summer swoon.

For IBM, aggressive globalization works. In fact, over the next few years, its approach could emerge as a model for other companies trying to capitalize on the globalizing trend without being hobbled by it.

Leading by Example

The model is simple. Under the old multinational rubric, IBM created miniature versions of itself in each country or region where it operated. That turned out to be a cumbersome and expensive way of doing business. So IBM now sets up shop wherever it can find the right talent at the right price. It has a global supply chain based in China, a global IT service delivery system based in India, and a global financing back office in Brazil. The company has set up new management systems to coordinate these activities.

These changes haven't come easily. IBM seems to be in a constant state of upheaval: More than 20,000 jobs have been eliminated in the U.S., Western Europe, and Japan even as the work force has grown beyond 50,000 employees in India and 10,000 in China. "This is a huge shift for IBM, but I believe it's necessary if we are to capture the benefits and step up to the challenges of a globally integrated economy," Chief Executive Samuel Palmisano said at an IBM-sponsored Forum on Global Leadership on July 25 in Washington, D.C.

If IBM's strategy continues to pay off, it could become a model for other large corporations to follow. Just as IBM found that it couldn't compete well against super-efficient, low-cost IT outfits in India, other industrial giants are at a disadvantage against upstarts from the U.S. and elsewhere that are tuned for the new global realities. They're being forced to make wrenching changes, as well. "For the past 20 years, people have been talking about what the company of the future should be. IBM is actualizing those ideas," says Rosabeth Moss Kanter, a professor at Harvard Business School.

Shifting Workflow and Revenue

While shifting work overseas to lower-cost locations has helped make IBM's huge tech services business more competitive, there's a lot more to the strategy than labor arbitrage. IBM also has improved its effectiveness by redesigning business processes, automating work with software, and bringing all of its increasingly global capabilities to bear on behalf of clients. The company uses the same processes in India that it does in France. That makes it possible to shift work to wherever employees with the right skills are available. As a result, at any given time, fewer people are sitting on the bench waiting for a job to be assigned to them.

And by hiring tens of thousands of people in developing nations, IBM gains more than the benefit of low-cost labor. It's also helping to build strong economies that are now becoming sizable markets for its goods and services. Revenues from the so-called BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, and China—now represent about 5% of IBM's total sales and are growing at 25% per quarter. Strategic outsourcing contracts from Indian companies grew nearly 150% last quarter. "These are the markets that will hypergrow over the next few years, and IBM will grow even faster there," says Michael Cannon-Brookes, vice-president for strategy in emerging markets.

IBM still faces fierce opposition in IT services from both India and Accenture. There's plenty of competition in its software and computer hardware businesses as well. But, thanks to its globalization strategy, it's no longer the slow-moving, inefficient, and overpriced giant that it was just a few years ago. Globalization is here to stay, and so, apparently, is IBM.

source: http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2007/tc20070810_700113.htm?campaign_id=rss_daily

The world in India

Revolves around two things.
1. Cricket.
2. Bollywood.

Yesterday a sentencing locked away an actor for 6 years. All news channels stopped other news- like the DJ take over, Iraq, CR's visit to the middle east everything to run constant updates. A court has pronounced someone guilty - that usually means he/ she is. Unless proven otherwise. Now, after 14 years the sentence is passed and it becomes" tearful" - the country is up in arms about this- the verdict is too harsh - well, why arnt they thinking about the 245 families who lost their loved ones because someone wanted to look macho with AKs and Dessert Eagles?

Anyways - the news is only talking about this. Where are we going ?

Audi moving ahead!

Audi's latest results have put analysts in a tizzy. They are expecting that if the current trend of Audi's sales continues - it will overtake BMW in operating profits by 2010 and by 2012 it will overtake the operating revenues. Analysts expect the rate of growth of Audi to be at 10% per annum for the next three years about 3 times that of BMW. All these are fueled by the new models launched by Audi.

The sights trained on Audi after the 1998 launch of the Audi TT, never did the industry expect a car subsidiary to catch up with main manufacturers. Audi is successfully wielding the same growth strategy premium-market leader BMW deployed in 2000 to outsell Mercedes. Audi, Germany's No. 3 premium automaker, is on a tear to expand its lineup of high-performance cars such as the posh Q7 SUV and the A5 coupe, and it's employing head-turning design to steal customers from the competition.

The numbers tell the story. In the first half of 2007, Audi's worldwide car sales rose 9.8%, to 509,079, as revenues rose 12.4%, to $24 billion. Global sales at BMW were up 4.5%, to 730,285, by comparison, while Mercedes' fell 3%, to 591,200. First-half revenues at Audi rose 12.4%, to $24 billion. Mercedes edged up 1%, to $34 billion. BMW releases first-half financial results on Aug. 1.

With the growing brand awarness - older models, that usally have a lifespan of 3- 4 years usually decline - however, the Audi A4- a Six year old Audi starts at $28000.

Audi managed to sell 162,900 A4 sedans in the first half of this year, up 1.5% over the same period a year ago. And now it is planning to unveil a new-generation A4 in September, which should give it yet more room to run.

In the first half, Audi's U.S. sales rose 13%. Until recently Audi sold its cars in the U.S. through Volkswagen dealerships, which muddled its image by association with a mass-market brand. In markets such as Miami, Los Angeles, and New York, upscale glass-and-steel dealerships have opened, helping to lure buyers with higher incomes. The edgy, minimalist design of the new dealerships exudes upmarket ambience.

However....
Audi is not just selling more cars, it's making more money on those cars. First-half earnings zoomed ahead as more expensive models and an increasingly tony brand image reaped higher margins per car. In the first half, operating profit increased 39.5%, to $1.38 billion, and net profit rose 67%, to $937 million. That puts Audi's 6.4% operating margins on a par with Mercedes' long-term returns and very close to BMW margins. Audi's management vowed two years ago to be the world's most successful premium car manufacturer by 2015.

Wild life or Sane Life?

An awesome video of a hunter's maternal instincts overtaking the killer instincts. A leopard kills a babboon, and left with the babboons baby - instead of killing it - started nursing it.

Dog eat dog world! :)

Another travel site launched in beta, they need advertising revenue - so they place ads. What are these ads? For other websites offering better fares! :) what is the world coming to!

Toyota Way

Toyota's fast pacing growth towards the number 1 automobile manufacturer with just two car brands (toyota and Lexus) under its belt, as opposed to the several touted by other manufacturers.
maybe this is the reason why:

Fujio Cho has only been in the top job at Toyota for a year, and he is only the second chairman not to be a member of the founding family.

But he's been with the Japanese automotive giant since 1960. He is now 70, not particularly old by the standards of Japanese bosses.

Mr Cho got a law degree from the elite Tokyo University, and then joined Toyota as an apprentice.

He learnt the secrets of Toyota's revolutionary Lean Manufacturing System from the man who invented it, Taiichi Ohno, an unarguable genius.

In the six years from 1988, Mr Cho was the head of Toyota's United States operation in Kentucky at a time of relentless and brave expansion, a long way from home.

He must have picked up a lot of English, but he prefers to speak Japanese when answering reporters' questions.

I suppose it gives him time to think, and thinking is what he does, leaving quite long gaps between a question and its tentative answer.

Mr Cho does not wish to appear to have all the answers. His is extraordinary modesty, and so is his company, considering what they have just done.

Strong sales

Some time around the first quarter of this year, Toyota outpaced General Motors as the largest car-seller in the USA. It is likely that will continue for the rest of 2007.

This is probably one of the most significant business happenings of the past century.

Toyota is trying to behave like an American company in the US

Answering my question about being number one during a visit to the St Gallen Symposium in Switzerland recently, the self effacing Mr Cho does not sound like a chairman of Toyota.

He ducks it.

"I think it is too early to talk about who is number one or not," he says.

"And we do not really consider ourselves number one, anyway. But yes, we've been doing very well in sales in the past six or seven years in particular."

American company

Fujio Cho thinks it is the fact that Toyota now manufactures for local tastes that has made the difference. It is what he pioneered in the USA.

Our way of thinking is very difficult to copy or even to understand Fujio Cho Chairman, Toyota

Talk to the people who have run the big three US car companies into almost bankruptcy and they seem to have little understanding of the sheer wholeness of the Toyota system; and part of that completeness is Toyota's refusal to take a victory role after decades of having GM as its global target.

Toyota recognises the dangers of being number one and luxuriating in the glory. Besides, Toyota has political problems to face if it comes out too strongly as the giant killer in the US.

The export of US jobs from rustbelt industries is already a big issue, and Toyota's (defensive) US stance is to become as American as it possibly can, hence Mr Cho's pride in local manufacture and local employment.

Living the success

But there's another wonder about Toyota I wanted to know about.

Toyota makes cars like nobody else

There's nothing secret about the Toyota Lean Manufacturing System. Anyone from a US rival can walk along the elevated runway in Toyota City, above the production lines, and see how Just In Time, a Different Model Every Time, Lean Manufacturing works.

And yet, few others seem really to understand what's happening down below them on the factory floor, let alone take the lessons back to beleaguered car industries elsewhere in the world.

Why?

Mr Cho thinks long about this, and then answers at length.

"There are many factors, so I have to think a bit," he says.

"First, the philosophy needs to be fully grasped by top management. Groups of companies involved in car making have to become one, to move together.

"Avoiding overproduction has to be built into the system, a difficult task. And each problem will have to be made visible, and then tackled by every one of the workers.

"These are all things that companies do not normally do. It's difficult to live the Toyota way of production."

Global benefits?

Just introducing methods and ideas on their own are not going to bring about success, he insists.

"Visiting our factory, you will see that on one line we have eight different types of cars, not just variations. This is done to help our suppliers use up production every day.

"Our way of thinking is very difficult to copy or even to understand. It is even difficult for top managers to understand that this is worthwhile. And doing it this way causes inconvenience all over the place.

"At the start, the line keeps stopping, for example. Even when you see it, it is difficult to understand."

A last, cheeky question: would the company now echo the old GM motto and proclaim :"What's good for Toyota is good for the world?"

Mr Cho grins. "We wouldn't dare to think that," he replies.

and now.... A news LAtter!

Hyping News!

With the advent of new news channel, the dearth of quality reporting has made a mark. The other day i was reading a "report" by someone from a "leading daily" in a very large metro - this is how the "reporting goes"

"The accident occurred a mere 16 days after another teenaged driver put two food vendors in hospital just metres away from Monday’s accident site at Khar Danda. Nearby Carter Road has been the site of several accidents in the recent past. Recently, the traffic department said the owner of the car would be arrested if an under-age person was found driving it.

Salim Khan (name changed), a resident of Uttar Pradesh, had been staying for the last few days at his maternal uncle Miraj Khan’s (45) home at Khar Danda.

Salim, anxious to try out Miraj’s grey Maruti Zen, stole the keys and set off on a drive. Only, a nervous Salim (14) hit the accelerator hard as soon as he turned on the ignition, slamming the car into a stall and two houses. Fisherwoman Parvati Saroj (50) suffered severe head injuries.

A terrified Salim jumped out of the car and tried to flee, but he was nabbed by the locals and taken to his uncle’s residence nearby. As Miraj ran to the spot to take Saroj to hospital, locals told Salim’s aunt what had happened.

Taking advantage of a diversion, Salim fled and is yet to be traced.

The teenager’s relatives said the the car was bought only eight days earlier and that Salim

had never driven an automobile before. “It seemed as if he did not know about the brakes,” said Mohammed Ayub, a witness to the crash. Ayub, who was repairing his scooter at the spot, suffered minor injuries after the car brushed his right leg.

The car itself was mangled. “It was so terrible that parts of the car flew into the houses nearby,” Ayub said. "

Given the quality of the article, one wonders on what grounds do editors ask journos to write. This is more like a high school essay submission “a nervous salim,… “ gwad.

Competing closely with bullshit reporting is the television media. You really must give it to them because they need to churn out the same shit, so many times a day, that they should ensure that they don’t get bored of reporting / repeting it. So what do they do? Sensationalize!

The above article was there in a leading news website - Terror in Jammu and KAshmir school curriculum.
Wow! so now with the world already talking that madarsas are teaching all kids terrorist tacticts, an article like this echos just that, but is that the article? no! the article is that they have started introducing methods for kids to cope with terrorism, but talking about it. The initiative itself is brilliant, but the way the headline is given makes you believe that they are teaching something else. Is there NO one to check this kind of "hype" reporting?

Todays article was titled " World Prays:Atlantis stuck in space" You thinking 'OMG" hope we dont have another problem, but then it goes on to talk that there is cloudy weather, hence they cannot land. So as much as it is a temporary phenomenon, you really need to churn out shit to keep readers on one's site!

God save this industry!

Globalization and Economics!

It is an article of faith on the left that the gap between rich and poor has now widened to a dangerous chasm, as global capitalism has enriched rich countries and impoverished poor ones.

But its not quite like that.

It is true that Burundi and other countries in sub-Saharian Africa remain desperately poor, while living standards in the West have risen dramatically, so the gap between the two extremes has widened.

But there is a big group of previously poor countries whose average citizens are now much better off as a result of globalization.

China, India, Indonesia, Chile, South Korea, Chile, Brazil have all moved up, and they are highly populous countries.

Inequality is only unambiguously worse if you ignore the countries where the bulk of the world's population live.

A new Gilded Age?

It's within countries rather than between them that inequality has grown starker.

Shopping mall Garuda, Bangalore, India
Affluence has come to urban areas in developing countries
In China and India, those left on the land remain dirt-poor, but those who've been sucked into the global market have seen their incomes rise substantially.

In the United States, too, the gap between the super-rich and even the middle class has widened.

There is now talk of a new Gilded Age in America, reminiscent of the previous ones in the 1920s and at the end of the 19th century when millionaires bought mansions by the ocean from the mountains of money the had made on railroads or steel or oil, while the poor looked on from outside.

Rising inequality

According to Princeton economist Paul Krugman, the incomes of the middle class and poor in America have barely risen in a quarter of a century,but those at the top have gone up by about 150%.

"It really is a new Gilded Age. If you look at the distribution of income, at least pre-tax, it is the same as it was in the 1920s, and the 1920s looked the same as pre- World War One - so we are in a new gilded age of inequality," he says.

In Britain, the country's thousand richest people now have wealth of about $300bn (£150bn), three times the figure of ten years ago.

That's partly because London has attracted some of the world's super-rich. from the Russian oligarchs to steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, but also because bonuses in the City of London have gone through the roof.

Trade union for the rich?

Finance people all over the world have found a way of securing more money that any trade unionist of old would recognize: play one employer off against another in a very competitive market.

Finance professionals around the world are getting rich. Professor Stephany Griffith-Jones of the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex University says the habit isn't confined to Wall Street and London's Square Mile:

"We can see it in the City of London but also in very poor developing countries. They have this curious habit of saying that 'we have to be paid very well because our peers in other countries are being paid well and we will leave if you don't pay us ridiculous salaries and bonuses' that pushes up their levels of income," she says.

$400m yachts

The signs of inequality are now large - literally so on the jetties of Antibes or Florida.


Where it used to be the "haves and the have-nots", now it's the "haves and the have- yachts".

Twenty-five years ago, a top of the range vessel would have cost about $8m (£4m).

Today, it would be $400m, according to Jonathan Beckett, the chief executive of the Nigel Burgess company which sells the grandest vessels to the super rich.

So what do you get for your $400m?

"Nothing is impossible", he said.

"You would have a yacht with two or three helicopter landing facilities. You would have discotheques and cinemas. You would probably have a submarine with opening doors in the bottom of the boat., so you get into the submarine and you get into the hatch and then flood the compartment and you slip away quietly".

Politics of envy

Of course, it's easy to sneer and play the politics of envy, perhaps easier in Britain than in America where affluence is more often seen as a reward for success.


Can you begrudge Sir Martin Sorrell his salary of about $5m a year when he built an advertising company operating in 106 countries out of a shoe-string operation in a damp garage?

Or should George Soros really hand back his billions from his hedge funds when he made them from nothing after surviving the Nazis and the Soviets?

He says there is a duty on the rich but you can't expect them to sort out inequality:

"I do think there is something slightly obscene in the degree of inequality that prevails in the world and to that extent I feel an obligation, but to expect inequality to be taken care of by philanthropists is barking up the wrong tree because some philanthropists feel it and others are not philanthropic. So it really needs social regulation." he says.

In other words, it's for governments elected by the people to determine rates of taxation on the rich and social provision for the poor.

And any sensible policy would recognise that success does merit reward. The question is: how much?

Is equality good for you?

So are there any real, objective consequences to inequality apart from firing up cheap resentment?

Poverty has risen in the US along with affluence
It does seem true that more equal countries tend to have healthier populations than unequal countries of the same over-all economic standards.

Perhaps the crucial question is whether unequal countries grow faster.

If they do, might a bigger cake, with unevenly divided slices, be better for the poor than a tiny cake cut into equal but tiny pieces?

After all, the most conspicuously successful economy of our times is that of the relatively unequal United States.

The academic evidence isn't clear-cut, and it may vary between countries.

Inequality in desperately poor countries might stifle growth, but promote it in richer ones.

Generally, though it seems true that some inequality in a country accompanies high growth, but too much may destroy social cohesion.

The two previous Gilded Ages ended with a bump - the Panic of 1893 and the Crash of 1929.

How will the third one end?

Ozymandias

Ozymandias


By Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desart....Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away."

Technology and Religion

While reading an article the other day, a couple of "hot links" came onot the page. This is a feature of the browser, and now it is integrated into the website, as in, the some keywords would launch as individual search windows.
So, while reading up on some intense technological funda, I get the following "hot links"

I do find the image quite amusing. The article is talking about NBFC's (Non-Banking Financial Companies) and Stock brokers, and the advert says "Sri Sri Ravi shankar Wants to know" :) yup, how to make more money in stocks than in religion, however, sometimes, religion does PAy!!! :D

The indian Automotive Market

Timeline: India's automotive industry

India has begun an ambitious development programme for its automotive industry, which it hopes will make it a global production hub by 2016.

To many in India, cars remain illusive luxuries

The initiative, which is backed by both the government and by the existing automotive industry, relies on heavy investment both by domestic operators and non-Indian car companies.

Many foreign firms are eager to participate in the likely profits to be derived both from the growth of the Indian market and from the development of India as a major producer and exporter of cars, motorcycles, commercial vehicles and automotive components.

Here is an overview of the relatively slow, albeit increasingly rapid, emergence of India's automotive industry.

1940s

An embryonic automotive industry emerges in India

1953

Efforts to create a manufacturing industry to supply the automotive industry with components get underway, spearheaded by the Indian government and leading entrepreneurs.

1970 to 1980

India's automotive industry begins to grow relatively fast, fuelled by six automotive companies:

• Telco (now Tata Motors)
• Ashok Leyland
• Mahindra & Mahindra
• Hindustan Motors
• Premier Automobiles
• Bajaj Auto

However, having a car is still seen as a luxury.

This is at least partly because the sector's growth is held back by requirements for production licences and restrictions on both production within India and on imports.

1980 to 1985

Rickshaws are still commonplace in India

Japanese manufacturers begin to build motorcycle, car and commercial vehicle factories in India, often in partnership with Indian firms.

Component manufacturers also enter into joint-venture agreements, with European and US firms.

Exports start to grow.

1985 to 1990

The auto component sector, which had been protected by high import tariffs, squares up to competitors as the rules are changed.

Maruti Udyog enters the passenger car segment.

During the following years, Japanese manufacturers started selling motorcycles and light commercial vehicles.

1990 to1995

Taxis outnumber private cars in many parts of India

Economic liberalisation gets underway, allowing passenger car production without licences, though import restrictions remained in place.

Hero Honda emerges as a major operator in the motorcycle market, while Maruti Udyog becomes the leading passenger car maker.

1995 to 2000

International car makers enter the Indian market, a trend that accelerates.

India's streets are gradually getting fuller

Advanced technology is introduced to meet competitive pressures, and environmental and safety imperatives.

Automobile companies start investing in service network to support maintenance of on-road vehicles.

Auto financing starts emerging as an important driver for demand.

2000 to present

As India's car market grows, the country is also emerging as a global automotive production hub In pictures

Liberalisation of the automotive industry gets underway, with the removal of many trade and investment restrictions.

Cars developed and produced entirely in India for both the domestic and exports markets emerge.

Financial services firms begin to offer car loans, in cooperation with the car industry.

Efficiency, capacity and environmental issues are identified, along with initiatives aimed at encouraging research and development to address such issues.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6478685.stm

MURALI

A post wrten by a friend...... http://vanessagebbiesnews.blogspot.com/2007/04/winner-of-my-build-man-competition.html

MURALI


Murali is tapping his fingers to his forehead, trying to remember something. His shoulders are hunched over and his feet twitch sporadically.
"What? What is it?" I ask. He sighs and shakes his head. I trace the letter 's' down his back and yawn. When I open my eyes, Murali is gone. I look under the bed and behind the chair. I call out his name but no one answers.

*

"Diya?"
"What? What happened?"
"Murali's gone."
"What do you mean he's gone?"
"I mean he was sitting right beside me and I yawned and now he's gone."
"Don't be silly, he probably left."
"He couldn't have left, he doesn't know how to open the door. Meaning it sticks and he can't get it open by himself."
"Is this some kind of joke? Do you two have me on speaker phone or something?"
"No, he's really gone."
"Listen, call me back."
*

I begin to tabulate everything I know about him. He is left handed and has scars on his feet from a bike accident. He collects butterfly wings and hides them between the pages of an empty pocket diary. He never wears a watch. He believes that my door is haunted. Sometimes he thinks there are tiny demon-hands holding it shut. Sometimes he just kicks it and says 'Stupid fuck.'
"How come I can get it open?" I asked him once.
"Because," he said. "You're haunted too."
I open the window to see if he has fallen out and broken his ankle but he isn't there.

*

"It's Diya. Is he back yet?"
"No."
"Are you high or something? It's ok if you are but are you sure he was there? "
"I'm sure. I don't know. I thought he was here."
"Ok. That's ok."
"Diya, I need you to come let me out."
"What do you mean?"
"I can't get the door open, it's stuck."
"Ok. Ok hold on."

*


The light dims and bends on the floor like liquid. Murali suddenly seems to be everywhere at once, in colored bits and pieces. I remember the curve of his teeth, how I sometimes felt like shrugging him off like a heavy overcoat. I think of all the questions people will ask.
Where you the last person with him?
Yes.
How often do you lose things in your room? Have you ever lost a person before? How well did you know him?
I know that he hummed when he peed. I know that as a child, he thought girls came from their mothers and boys came from their fathers.
Was anything bothering him?
He didn't like my door. He thought it was vindictive and haunted.
Did you make him disappear?

I don't know.

*

"Hey, it’s me Diya. I'm knocking, can you hear me knocking?"
"Yes."
"Ok, so how do you want to do this?"
"Pull the door towards you when I say."
"Ok. Now?"
"No wait. Ok now try."
"Fuck. What happened?"
"I don't know. Usually I can open it fine. I don't know what happened today."
"Is he still gone?"
"He's not here. I don't know what happened."
"Everything will be ok. I'm going to get somebody to help open the door and then we're going to figure this out. We'll go look for him, how about that? I'm sure he'll be there."
"Where?"
"We'll find him, don't worry. We'll figure this out."


*

I picture roots shooting from the base of the door like sprays of black lightning, anchoring it down into places filled with broken things. I don't think they'll be able to get the door open. I don't think anybody will be able to do anything.
The dim light of the evening fades into a thick, dark smudge, swallowing the lines and corners of my room. The only thing I can see is my pillow which is lying on the floor. There is no trace of Murali-- no fingerprints, no butterfly wings, no notes saying 'gone fishing' or just 'gone'. It is like he was never here.

I sit beside the door and listen as a forest of broken bones blossoms inside me..

.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.

Fall of MG, or Rise of MG?

Chinese plant rolls out first MG

The first Chinese-built MG sports cars have rolled off the production line in the eastern city of Nanjing.

The manufacturer, state-owned Nanjing Automobile, bought the assets of collapsed UK car firm Rover in 2005.

It plans to produce 200,000 new cars every year and hopes to sell the vehicles around the world.

But many are likely to be sold to the booming domestic market, with demand for luxury vehicles soaring amongst the country's wealthy elite.

In six short months the Chinese have built a massive new factory and installed the robots and assembly lines they bought from the collapsed Rover, reports the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Nanjing.

And it was with music from the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and against a video wall showing shots of Tower Bridge and Buckingham Palace that Nanjing Auto launched its two new models.

These are the MG7 saloon and the MG-TF sports car which, General Manager Zhang Xin told Reuters news agency, would be priced at between 180,000 and 400,000 yuan ($23,300 - $51,700; £11,800 - £26,300).

The cars have not changed much, right down to the Union flag, which is still displayed proudly on their bodywork.

The company wants to sell the cars not just in China but around the world.

But with the Chinese car market growing by 10 million new cars every year, Nanjing Auto will likely be selling most of its MGs in showrooms closer to home, our correspondent adds.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6497959.stm

________________________________________________________________________________

In the era of globalization, the above story is a fitting example of the rise of the east. MG a once mighty European auto maker, took the sad path of closing down, only to be bought by Nanjing Auto. however, Nanjing auto has been very clear, it is imbibing only the technical knowhow and the IP of the company, it saves it the trouble of going through the learning curve. Craftily, it has also included all the British insignias in order to say that "look, its made in china, but its still british". A rather cruel blow. First to go was Lenovo, now another behemoth MG. so whats next?

The chinese took 6 months to set up a factory to churn out 200K cars per annum. 6Months. Now that is determination. I wonder if at any point any other country will be able to achieve such levels of productivity.

The Untapped, $5 Trillion Market - Myth or Reality?

C. K. Prahalad, the University of Michigan strategy guru and author of the best seller "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid," has lately taken some flack for his have-it-both-ways proposition that multinational corporations could alleviate global poverty while boosting their bottom lines. Critics like Aneel Karnani, also of the University of Michigan, argue that the bottom of the pyramid is smaller than Prahalad has claimed and far less lucrative.

In an interview for Fast Company's March "Fast 50" issue, Prahalad insisted he hadn't overestimated the size of the BOP. Now he's got some hard data to back up his claim.

According to a report released this morning by the IFC (the private sector arm of the World Bank Group) and the World Resources Institute, 4 billion people who live in "relative poverty" have purchasing power that amounts to a $5 trillion market. The report, The Next 4 Billion, uses income and expenditure data from household surveys to measure the size of the market at the very base of the economic pyramid. That's a first.

The report defines those who live at the base of the pyramid as having incomes below $3,000 in "local purchasing power" ranging from less than $3.35 a day in Brazil to $1.56 in India. In a classic bit of understatement, the report politely characterizes the $5 trillion BOP market as "underserved."

No doubt, some experts will continue to squabble over the numbers. But perhaps The Next 4 Billion, which is loaded with business case studies, will inspire at least a few big companies to at last understand that the BOP market could well be their next growth opportunity.

___________

That was an article on Fast Company. Something that really bothers one, would be the fact that- statistically, the market is huge, like the same way one says, there are 2 million IT employees, so that means that there is a market for ergonomic keyboards thats in the 2 million range, that is a $20Million market, which in theory is correct, but in practice, not correct. So, there might be 4Billion BoP persons, but these persons are subject to such abject poverty, its pitiful to try and sell them coke, or a TV or anything else. one needs to first educate them in better farming techniques, and increase the yield from the soil, and once they are above the "below $1" line, then sell them stuff.

The agrarian society has been one of frugality and caution, the urban society is one of splurging and debt, it would not be advisable to move this lifestyle of steady incomes to one that is dependent on monsoons.

Liz Who?

http://203.99.65.121/section/1501119/story.cfm?c_id=1501119&objectid=10427911

In the article by a reporter of Reuters called Jonathan Allen, which has explored the reactions to the residents of Jodhpur to Liz Hurley and Arun Nayar's wedding, has uncovered some rather harsh, and at times bordering on the inaccurate faucets of Indian society. However, I read a rather strange reply on the CNN IBN Site in their blog section, where the writer in her own myopic vision, creates an western stereotype and publishes it. At times you wonder why does the one working with a known form of journalism resort to such a low form of retort. Read it here.

Jonathan Allen's article does give background to the reactions expressed during the interviewing of residents of Jodhpur. Excerpt "Indian women are commonly married off in their teens to a man of their parents' choosing, and are a cause of despair if they are still a spinster at 30."

This was a reaction as Liz is 41. Yes, many a times, in our society we do wonder why a person has been unmarried for so long. Even though I do not subscribe to the fact that arranged marriages are the way forward, I have to believe that tradition has played a significant role in the shaping our culture. I can also assume that this tradition, of getting a bride married early can be traced back to a lot of cultures. In india, there might have been the creation of a formal process, which we follow today, but the term arranged can also be substituted by "Engineered".

In an agrarian society, there opportunity to meet and mingle with other communities had been considerably restricted. With village gatherings and other weddings, families come together. This could have been the platform, where parents introduced their children to each other, and the courtship started. However, this could have then evolved, to the current day tradition.

As a society, we do favor the male child, but as a developing economy, I think we really must grow more tolerant to criticism and help educate the western mindset to indian ethos and values. Engaging in mud slinging would not help in solving the primary problem of education.

It just gets readers more annoyed, and "patriotic" to the wrong things.

Look at bollywood. is that India?

SHOOTING AN ELEPHANT- George Orwell

One of them endless forwards that have proliferated the internet, thought it makes an interesting read!
________________________________________________________________
In Moulmein, in lower Burma, I was hated by large numbers of people--the only time in my life that I have been important enough for this to happen to me. I was sub-divisional police officer of the town, and in an aimless, petty kind of way anti-European feeling was very bitter. No one

had the guts to raise a riot, but if a European woman went through the bazaars alone somebody would probably spit betel juice over her dress. As a police officer I was an obvious target and was baited whenever it seemed safe to do so. When a nimble Burman tripped me up on the football field and the referee (another Burman) looked the other way, the crowd yelled with hideous laughter. This happened more than once. In the end the sneering yellow faces of young men that met me everywhere, the insults hooted after me when I was at a safe distance, got badly on my nerves. The young Buddhist priests were the worst of all. There were several thousands of them in the town and none of them seemed to have anything to do except stand on street corners and jeer at Europeans.

All this was perplexing and upsetting. For at that time I had already made up my mind that imperialism was an evil thing and the sooner I chucked up my job and got out of it the better. Theoretically--and secretly, of course--I was all for the Burmese and all against their
oppressors, the British. As for the job I was doing, I hated it more bitterly than I can perhaps make clear. In a job like that you see the dirty work of Empire at close quarters. The wretched prisoners huddling in the stinking cages of the lock-ups, the grey, cowed faces of the
long-term convicts, the scarred buttocks of the men who had been Bogged with bamboos--all these oppressed me with an intolerable sense of guilt. But I could get nothing into perspective. I was young and ill-educated and I had had to think out my problems in the utter silence that is
imposed on every Englishman in the East. I did not even know that the British Empire is dying, still less did I know that it is a great deal better than the younger empires that are going to supplant it. All I knew was that I was stuck between my hatred of the empire I served and my rage against the evil-spirited little beasts who tried to make my job impossible. With one part of my mind I thought of the British Raj as an unbreakable tyranny, as something clamped down, IN SAECULA SAECULORUM, upon the will of prostrate peoples; with another part I thought that the greatest joy in the world would be to drive a bayonet into a Buddhist priest's guts. Feelings like these are the normal by-products of imperialism; ask any Anglo-Indian official, if you can catch him off duty.

One day something happened which in a roundabout way was enlightening. It was a tiny incident in itself, but it gave me a better glimpse than I had had before of the real nature of imperialism--the real motives for which despotic governments act. Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it? I did not know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was happening and I got on to a pony and started out. I took my rifle, an old .44 Winchester and much too small to kill an elephant, but I thought the noise might be useful IN TERROREM. Various Burmans stopped me on the way and told me about the elephant's doings. It was not, of course, a wild elephant, but a tame one which had gone "must." It had been chained up, as tame elephants always are when their attack of "must" is due, but on the previous night it had broken its chain and escaped. Its mahout, the only person who could manage it when it was in that state, had set out in pursuit, but had taken the wrong direction and was now twelve hours' journey away, and in the morning the elephant had suddenly reappeared in the town. The Burmese population had no weapons and were quite helpless against it. It had already destroyed somebody's bamboo hut, killed a cow and raided some fruit-stalls and devoured the stock; also it had met the municipal rubbish van and, when the driver jumped out and took to his heels, had turned the van over and inflicted violences upon it.

The Burmese sub-inspector and some Indian constables were waiting for me in the quarter where the elephant had been seen. It was a very poor quarter, a labyrinth of squalid bamboo huts, thatched with palmleaf, winding all over a steep hillside. I remember that it was a cloudy,
stuffy morning at the beginning of the rains. We began questioning the people as to where the elephant had gone and, as usual, failed to get any definite information. That is invariably the case in the East; a story always sounds clear enough at a distance, but the nearer you get to the
scene of events the vaguer it becomes. Some of the people said that the elephant had gone in one direction, some said that he had gone in another, some professed not even to have heard of any elephant. I had almost made up my mind that the whole story was a pack of lies, when we
heard yells a little distance away. There was a loud, scandalized cry of "Go away, child! Go away this instant!" and an old woman with a switch in her hand came round the corner of a hut, violently shooing away a crowd of naked children. Some more women followed, clicking their tongues and exclaiming; evidently there was something that the children ought not to have seen. I rounded the hut and saw a man's dead body sprawling in the mud. He was an Indian, a black Dravidian coolie, almost naked, and he could not have been dead many minutes. The people said that the elephant had come suddenly upon him round the corner of the hut, caught him with
its trunk, put its foot on his back and ground him into the earth. This was the rainy season and the ground was soft, and his face had scored a trench a foot deep and a couple of yards long. He was lying on his belly with arms crucified and head sharply twisted to one side. His face was
coated with mud, the eyes wide open, the teeth bared and grinning with an expression of unendurable agony. (Never tell me, by the way, that the dead look peaceful. Most of the corpses I have seen looked devilish.) The friction of the great beast's foot had stripped the skin from his back as neatly as one skins a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man I sent an orderly to a friend's house nearby to borrow an elephant rifle. I had already sent back the pony, not wanting it to go mad with fright and throw me if it smelt the elephant.

The orderly came back in a few minutes with a rifle and five cartridges, and meanwhile some Burmans had arrived and told us that the elephant was in the paddy fields below, only a few hundred yards away. As I started forward practically the whole population of the quarter flocked out of the houses and followed me. They had seen the rifle and were all shouting excitedly that I was going to shoot the elephant. They had not shown much interest in the elephant when he was merely ravaging their homes, but it was different now that he was going to be shot. It was a bit of fun to them, as it would be to an English crowd; besides they wanted the meat. It made me vaguely uneasy. I had no intention of shooting the elephant--I had merely sent for the rifle to defend myself if necessary--and it is always unnerving to have a crowd following you. I marched down the hill, looking and feeling a fool, with the rifle over my shoulder and an ever-growing army of people jostling at my heels. At the bottom, when you got away from the huts, there was a metalled road and beyond that a miry waste of paddy fields a thousand yards across, not yet ploughed but soggy from the first rains and dotted with coarse grass. The elephant was
standing eight yards from the road, his left side towards us. He took not the slightest notice of the crowd's approach. He was tearing up bunches of grass, beating them against his knees to clean them and stuffing them into his mouth.

I had halted on the road. As soon as I saw the elephant I knew with perfect certainty that I ought not to shoot him. It is a serious matter to shoot a working elephant--it is comparable to destroying a huge and costly piece of machinery--and obviously one ought not to do it if it can
possibly be avoided. And at that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of "must" was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home.

But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man's dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd--seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he
destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives," and so in every crisis he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him. He wears a mask, and
his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing--no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man's life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

But I did not want to shoot the elephant. I watched him beating his bunch of grass against his knees, with that preoccupied grandmotherly air that elephants have. It seemed to me that it would be murder to shoot him. At that age I was not squeamish about killing animals, but I had never shot an elephant and never wanted to. (Somehow it always seems worse to kill a LARGE animal.) Besides, there was the beast's owner to be considered. Alive, the elephant was worth at least a hundred pounds; dead, he would only be worth the value of his tusks, five pounds, possibly. But I had got to act quickly. I turned to some experienced-looking Burmans who had
been there when we arrived, and asked them how the elephant had been behaving. They all said the same thing: he took no notice of you if you left him alone, but he might charge if you went too close to him.

It was perfectly clear to me what I ought to do. I ought to walk up to within, say, twenty-five yards of the elephant and test his behavior. If he charged, I could shoot; if he took no notice of me, it would be safe to leave him until the mahout came back. But also I knew that I was going
to do no such thing. I was a poor shot with a rifle and the ground was soft mud into which one would sink at every step. If the elephant charged and I missed him, I should have about as much chance as a toad under a steam-roller. But even then I was not thinking particularly of my own
skin, only of the watchful yellow faces behind. For at that moment, with the crowd watching me, I was not afraid in the ordinary sense, as I would have been if I had been alone. A white man mustn't be frightened in front of "natives"; and so, in general, he isn't frightened. The sole thought in my mind was that if anything went wrong those two thousand Burmans would see me pursued, caught, trampled on and reduced to a grinning corpse like that Indian up the hill. And if that happened it was quite probable that some of them would laugh. That would never do.

There was only one alternative. I shoved the cartridges into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim. The crowd grew very still, and a deep, low, happy sigh, as of people who see the theatre curtain go up at last, breathed from innumerable throats. They were going to have their bit of fun after all. The rifle was a beautiful German thing with cross-hair sights. I did not then know that in shooting an elephant one would shoot to cut an imaginary bar running from ear-hole to ear-hole. I ought, therefore, as the elephant was sideways on, to have aimed straight
at his ear-hole, actually I aimed several inches in front of this, thinking the brain would be further forward.

When I pulled the trigger I did not hear the bang or feel the kick--one never does when a shot goes home--but I heard the devilish roar of glee that went up from the crowd. In that instant, in too short a time, one would have thought, even for the bullet to get there, a mysterious,
terrible change had come over the elephant. He neither stirred nor fell, but every line of his body had altered. He looked suddenly stricken, shrunken, immensely old, as though the frighfful impact of the bullet had paralysed him without knocking him down. At last, after what seemed a
long time--it might have been five seconds, I dare say--he sagged flabbily to his knees. His mouth slobbered. An enormous senility seemed to have settled upon him. One could have imagined him thousands of years old. I fired again into the same spot. At the second shot he did not collapse but climbed with desperate slowness to his feet and stood weakly upright, with legs sagging and head drooping. I fired a third time. That was the shot that did for him. You could see the agony of it jolt his whole body and knock the last remnant of strength from his legs. But in
falling he seemed for a moment to rise, for as his hind legs collapsed beneath him he seemed to tower upward like a huge rock toppling, his trunk reaching skyward like a tree. He trumpeted, for the first and only time. And then down he came, his belly towards me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.

I got up. The Burmans were already racing past me across the mud. It was obvious that the elephant would never rise again, but he was not dead. He was breathing very rhythmically with long rattling gasps, his great mound of a side painfully rising and falling. His mouth was wide open--I could see far down into caverns of pale pink throat. I waited a long time for him to die, but his breathing did not weaken. Finally I fired my two remaining shots into the spot where I thought his heart must be. The thick blood welled out of him like red velvet, but still he did not die. His body did not even jerk when the shots hit him, the tortured breathing continued without a pause. He was dying, very slowly and in great agony, but in some world remote from me where not even a bullet could damage him further. I felt that I had got to put an end to that dreadful noise. It seemed dreadful to see the great beast Lying there, powerless to move and yet powerless to die, and not even to be able to finish him. I sent back for my small rifle and poured shot after shot into his heart and down his throat. They seemed to make no impression. The tortured gasps continued as steadily as the ticking of a clock.

In the end I could not stand it any longer and went away. I heard later that it took him half an hour to die. Burmans were bringing dahs and baskets even before I left, and I was told they had stripped his body almost to the bones by the afternoon.

Afterwards, of course, there were endless discussions about the shooting of the elephant. The owner was furious, but he was only an Indian and could do nothing. Besides, legally I had done the right thing, for a mad elephant has to be killed, like a mad dog, if its owner fails to control
it. Among the Europeans opinion was divided. The older men said I was right, the younger men said it was a damn shame to shoot an elephant for killing a coolie, because an elephant was worth more than any damn Coringhee coolie. And afterwards I was very glad that the coolie had been killed; it put me legally in the right and it gave me a sufficient pretext for shooting the elephant.

I often wondered whether any of the others grasped that I had done it solely to avoid looking a fool.

The decline of Detroit - from BBC News

By Steve Schifferes

28,000 workers lost their jobs when GM closed Buick City in Flint

Globalisation has been a powerful force that has accelerated change in the world economy over the past half-century.

It has affected the fate of companies as much as countries. And nowhere has been the change more dramatic than in the US car industry.

The Big Three are facing their greatest challenge ever in their entire postwar history Professor Garel Rhys, Cardiff University

Fifty years ago, American car companies dominated the world, especially the mighty GM, the world's biggest industrial company, many of whose factories were based in Flint, Michigan, 40 miles north of Detroit.

GM in decline

For the grandparents of Claire McClinton, who made the journey from the poverty of the rural south to Michigan just after World War II, it was like arriving in another world.

"None of their children ever went hungry, we all had a good education, we had good jobs, and owned our own home. We thought we were living the American dream," she told the BBC.

GLOBALISATION SERIES How Detroit lost its dominance in the global car industry Wednesday: Lean production Next week: China's Challenge Key fact: Car Industry What is globalisation? Have you been affected by changes to the auto industry?

Claire's whole family followed in their footsteps and became "Flintsones," working for GM - and so did Claire.

They were loyal members of the autoworkers union, the UAW, which won increasing benefits for its members, with average wages of more than $50,000 plus overtime.

"We respected the union then," she said. "We believed it was the union that had delivered us the American dream."

In the 1950s the Detroit area had the highest median income, and highest rate of home ownership, of any major US city. But times are very different now.

GM, under pressure from its competitors, is no longer making money in the American car market - and it has been closing plants all across Flint.

GM WORKER'S VIEW We thought we were living the American Dream Claire McClinton, third generation GM autoworker, Flint, Michigan

Now there are only 6,000 GM workers in Flint, compared to 100,000 at the peak, and the town and workers are suffering.

"Flint has the highest rate of unemployment, poverty and homelessness in Michigan," Claire told me.

She works in a shelter feeding the poor, and would like her union to get more involved in the community. And she is not sure how much longer she will have a job - and if she retires, whether she will have any benefits.

GM has already told the unions it wants to cut the generous retirement and health care benefits it promised its workers in the halcyon days of success.

The company does plan to build more car plants in the future - but in emerging markets like China and India, not in the United States.

Compare global car firms by profits, sales, and employees

Toyota rising

But 400 miles south of Flint, another group of car workers are feeling very different.

Toyota builds 500,000 cars a year at its vast Kentucky plant

They work in Toyota's huge Camry factory in Georgetown, Kentucky, and receive, by their standards, generous pay and benefits.

Toyota is the fastest-growing car company in the United States, and it is building a new factory every year to keep up with demand.

And it is set to overtake GM this year as the world's largest car company by sales.

For Laura Wilshire, from Ashland, Kentucky , life is good.

"This is the top notch job in the area," she told the BBC.

TOYOTA WORKER'S VIEW This is the top notch job in the area Laura Wilshire, Toyota worker, Georgetown, Kentucky

She doubled her salary when she joined Toyota, and the company provides a good health care plan for her family, including dental coverage for her two children.

And she says that Toyota has also helped to provide better schools for her children by putting money into the town's budget.

She says more is expected of workers at Toyota than her previous job in a convenience store, but she doesn't mind taking responsibility.

"If a seatbelt isn't right, I stop the line until it is fixed - that is an important issue as it could affect people's safety."

Toyota encourages workers to take personal responsibility for defects, and to work together to fix them.

That attitude has given them a well-deserved reputation for quality and reliability - and the Camry has been the best-selling car in America for the last ten years.

Toyota has no trouble hiring the right sort of workers - 100,000 people applied for the 3,000 jobs when the plant opened in 1990.

Laura says she feels sad when she reads in the papers about what is happening to autoworkers in places like Flint.

Dominance to decline

Now, according to Professor Garel Rhys of Cardiff University, the US Big Three are facing their greatest challenge ever in their entire postwar history.

What has led to the decline of US car manufacturers in their home market?

While it was inevitable they would eventually lose their monopoly position, their failure to adapt their production methods and meet changing consumer tastes has accelerated their decline.

Flint, Michigan, Hq of GM, was once a thriving community

In 1955, the world looked like a very different place.

Four out of every five cars in the world were made in the US, half of them by GM.

No other car companies had the capital or the know-how to enter the global car business.

GM's main US rival, Ford, was half its size. The largest foreign carmaker, VW, was little bigger than GM's own German subsidiary, Opel and only had one model - the VW Beetle.

And Toyota was not even on the horizon. It made 23,000 cars in 1955 in Japan, compared to 4 million manufactured by GM in the US.

Innovation and experiment

But the near-monopoly conditions in the American market bred complacency - and the assumption that the American lead in technology and marketing was unassailable.

Ford and GM dominated the US auto industry in the l960s

According to Stephen D'Arcy, head of Global Automotive Practice at PriceWaterhouse Coopers, in the long run "the US monopoly was an unsustainable anomoly."

In the 1950s and 1960s, US firms failed to innovate in the design of cars, preferring to make money by increasing the size and weight of their vehicles by adding extras like air conditioning, power steering, and fancy sound systems.

It was left to European manufacturers to develop disc brakes, rack-and-pinion steering, air-cooled and diesel engines.

And the mass production system discouraged innovation because it was so expensive to introduce fundamentally new models.

Meanwhile, Toyota was also making a virtue of adversity, changing its production system to become leaner and more efficient than its rivals.

Oil crisis

It was the oil crisis in the 1970s that first illuminated the problems of US automakers.

Lean production: It is easy to say you will do it, but harder to actually implement it James Womack, author, The Machine that Changed the World

For the first time, smaller cars were the rage, and US consumers found that cars like the Toyota Corolla were an attractive alternative to big American cars.

Imports of Japanese cars soared in the 1980s, to the chagrin of the US companies and the unions alike, taking nearly one-quarter of the US market.

And when the companies pressured the US government into limiting imports from Japan, Toyota and Nissan started building car plants in the US.

By 2005, these Japanese "transplants" were producing 4 million cars a years, one-quarter of US output, and more than GM.

The Japanese located their plants in low-wage, non-union areas of the US and brought new, more flexible production methods as well.

As a result, they could make money on smaller cars and change models more frequently.

The US car companies tried and failed to design a competitive small car.

They also experimented with Japanese production methods but neither seemed to do the trick and close the quality gap.

According to James Womack, author of the influential book The Machine that Changed the World, it was easy for everyone to say they accepted lean production, but much harder to actually implement it.

The SUV craze

If the 1980s was a decade of fear, the 1990s represented a false dawn.

With oil back at $10 a barrel, the US companies thought they had the answer to the Japanese threat - the SUV (Sports Utility Vehicle).

As light trucks, SUVs were protected by a 25% import tariff and also escaped government rules laid down to boost fuel efficiency.

SUV sales soared from one to four million with 60% of the Big Three's sales - and nearly all of their profits - coming from SUVs.

The SUVs transformed the fortunes of Chrysler, dominating with its Voyager minivan and Jeep Grand Cherokee, and Ford which had the best-selling SUV, the Ford Explorer.

Abandoning cars proved a costly mistake for Detroit when it became clear in recent years that environmental concerns were here to stay.

Last year,the price of gasoline in the US reached a record $3 per gallon in most states.

As a result, SUV sales slumped, and the sale of smaller vehicles rose.

At this year's Detroit Auto Show, Ford and GM made it clear that they were taking the environment seriously, and produced electric-powered concept cars.

But these cars are years, if not decades, away from reaching the public, while Toyota is already rolling out its hybrid electric-petrol engine across its entire range.

Downsizing lessons

In 2006, both Ford and GM finally accepted they would never dominate the US car market as in the past.

Detroit still puts on a glitzy image at the annual motor show

They both announced huge downsizing programmes, cutting 70,000 jobs between them.

And Chrysler - now owned by German firm Daimler - also announced its own downsizing programme and is effectively up for sale.

There is real doubt in the industry that all three can survive.

GM hopes to survive as a global car company which increasingly operates outside the US.

And Ford may survive by selling some of its more profitable European subsidiaries.

But even if they manage this, it is sad end to what was once a central element in the American industrial dream.

	Sales (volume)	Sales ($bn)	Profit ($bn)	Market value ($bn)	Workforce
GM	8.3m	192	-10.9	20	335,000
Toyota	8.2m	176	12.5	208	285,000
Daimler/Chrsyler	4.8m	185	-1.7*	65	382,000
Ford	6.6m	153	-12.7*	16	300,000
Volkswagen	5.2m	118	5.2	43	344,000

Taken from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6346299.stm