Free American Icon by Bryce G. Hoffman

2005. He began with an overview of the current business environment, followed by his best guesses about how it would evolve over the next ten years. In retrospect, his assumptions were shockingly naïve: oil prices would remain low except for occasional, temporary spikes; industry volumes in the United States would remain stable at around 17 million units through 2010; there would be moderate growth in the small-car segment, and a gradual shift away from big SUVs to the emerging crossover category. Reality would prove far more harrowing, but at the time these conditions were seen as “challenging.” He told the board Ford’s biggest challenge was winning back customers.
    Fields devoted a big chunk of the meeting to his demographic profiles and brand metrics. The marketing mumbo-jumbo left some board members rolling their eyes, but they got the basic point: Ford needed to stand for something again, and that something was America. Ford also needed to concentrate its investment on those segments where it could really compete and build more products off fewer platforms. That would allow the company to spend more on bodies and interiors, focusing on those parts of the product that the consumer could see and touch and worrying less about what was underneath the skin. By way of example, Fields showed the directors how Ford could build six new cars and crossovers for North America off a single Volvo platform. † This was the same approach Toyota used, and it was part of the reason why the Japanese automaker’s material costs averaged more than $1,000 per vehicle less than Ford’s. At the same time, Fields proposed eliminating aging vehicles like the Freestar minivanand Crown Victoria sedan, and replacing them with new subcompacts and crossovers, which were lacking in Ford’s North American lineup.
    “We need to stop planning products to fill plants,” he told the board. “We need to match production to the actual demand.”
    Fields also wanted to roll back incentives, offer clearer pricing, and take other steps to boost the residual values of Ford’s vehicles. This would allow the company to offer lower lease rates and make its products more competitive with the imports. Fields closed by going over the specific goals of his Way Forward plan, promising to return the North American automotive business to profitability by 2008 and showing off sales forecasts that projected annual volumes of more than 2.5 million vehicles by 2010.
    The board was impressed. Finally, someone was willing to make the deep cuts many of them had long felt were necessary. They commended Fields on his plan and told him to execute it as quickly as possible, because Ford was running out of time.

    T he formal announcement of Fields’ Way Forward plan was delayed until late January 2006 because the company was worried that the grim details of job cuts and plant closures would overshadow important product unveilings it had scheduled earlier that month. But with Bill Ford and the rest of the board behind him, Fields was eager to set his plan in motion. He sounded the first bugle call at the Los Angeles Auto Show on January 4. In a speech to the world’s automotive press, he promised that Ford had learned the lessons of its past mistakes and knew it needed to “change or die.” Four days later, Fields was back onstage at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, this time unveiling Horbury’s new crossover, which embodied what he was now calling “bold, American design.” With an athletic stance and an enormous chrome grille, the Ford Edge certainly did that.
    “You are going to see a lot more products like Edge from Ford—products that have a very clear point of view,” Fields promised. “It’s these sorts of products that will make Ford America’s carcompany. That’s what’s driving our way torward—a retaking of the American marketplace—and it starts today.”
    The wraps came off the rest of the Way Forward plan two weeks