As Ford continues to struggle and rebuild its brand and image in the eyes of the public, the company continues to reorganize internally and seems to be making progress towards its goal of becoming profitable.
The latest bit of news comes from Derrick Kuzak Ford’s group vice president of global product development,Ford will update its vehicles with major face-lifts, technical improvements and other changes in three-year cycles, Kuzak said. The changes will be ones that customers notice, he said. They will be aimed at keeping vehicles fresh and drawing consumers into Ford and Lincoln Mercury showrooms.
By 2009, the average age of Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles will be reduced 35 percent, bringing the average age of the automaker’s vehicles in line with the best in the industry.
This is good news, it can be argued that long product life cycles was one of the contributing factors in Fords market decline and financial problems.
While Toyota and Honda have closely followed four year product cycles to stay competitive and give it's dealer body fresh product to sell, Ford has generally followed a product refresh rate of up to or over 5 years in many of its models.
This has Ford and their dealer body at a disadvantage, it becomes increasingly difficult to sell against updated competition which in some cases would be a generation ahead of some Ford products, this leads to a vicious cycle of price reductions in the hopes that customers will buy the car based on price and not the Value of the vehicle.
The clock is ticking for Ford, and while it seems that GM will be the first of the three domestic makers to return to health,things are moving quickly within the company and it seems determined to return to health.
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