International Entrepreneurship Assignment: Case Study Analysis of Ford Motor

Question

Task: International Entrepreneurship PART A: Case study Each student in the group will develop a case study on an international entrepreneur from a country of their choice with a specific focus (see list below which will allocated to themembers of each group–that is if a group has 5 members each will do a case study on a different international entrepreneur with a specific focus eg technology). (Therefore if you are assigned technology entrepreneurship, you will find an international entrepreneur who is a technology entrepreneur also). Information gathered on the entrepreneur and their firm should be entered on the research template provided (this is available on Blackboard) and submitted with the case study. 1000 words maximum excluding references.

PART B (THEMES) Students will then prepare and submit a second part for this international entrepreneurship assignment,where they are required to identify the main International Entrepreneurship themes emerging from the case study, and how the focal international entrepreneur and their firm confirm/disconfirm the relevant International Entrepreneurship literature, 500 words maximum excluding references (A+B Total 1500 words):

Answer

PART A: Case study
The case study is based on the development of Ford Motor company by Henry Ford. While working as an engineer for Edison Illuminating company Henry Ford has created initial model of gasoline-generated horseless car, the Quadricycle (corporate.ford.com, 2020). In 1903, Henry Ford developed the Ford Motor organization, and 5 years after the organization rolled out its 1st Model T. For achieving awesome demands for the new and innovative car then; he introduced radical new mass manufacturing process, involving large production plants, the application of standardized, compatible parts and, in 1913, the globe’s 1st moving assembly line for vehicles (corporate.ford.com, 2020). In 1950s and after that the organization started limited diversification, however by 1990s, the company had reconcentrated on its automotive matters and economic services. Henry Ford also bought an important share of Mazda Motor Company (corporate.ford.com, 2020). Though, as he struggled in the primary 21st century, this started selling these brands. As part of a domestic effort for developing dealerships, the main directors motivated some of its big dealerships to create new facilities, which will characterize other matters. Those new urban service centres will offer specific data on a multitude of daily car problems.

Henry Ford was attentive in daily aspect of life and explored innovative level of education that, in time, lead to the base of Edison Institute, named as The Henry Ford. In a sole location, he brought together many buildings and millions of relies (britannica.com, 2020). This was one of the biggest collections of its type ever collected, along with a bold and motivated innovative way for people of all types to uncover and explore the creativeness of American experiences for themselves (britannica.com, 2020). He took motivation from the past and face chances for the future as well as believed in technological power for developing people’s lives. For him technologies were not just a basis of profits, this was a process to culture new concepts and further democratize American life (Klein,2019). He laid the basis of the 21st century. The assembly line turns current feature production modes, ultimately applied to all from phonographs to hamburgers. The major quantities of was tool turned out on those assembly lines were important for the Allied Win in World War 2. Higher wages, low capability factory jobs founded by him developed both immigration from foreign (Klein,2019). The same jobs also developed the movement of the same citizens in an ever-developing middle class. In a historic outline of the law of unintended results, the development of major numbers of low accomplished employees gave increase in the 1930s to industrial unionism as a main political and social force (Klein,2019). The first Model T laid mass automobility, changing the leisure operations, living conditions and others.

Under the management, Ford motor is embarking on a wider, evolving game planning, which can serve as a framework for other legacy organizations confronting disruption. Below are that planning’s basic parts (Kaufman, 2020). Rethinking purposes, the company will concentrate on developing the innovative financial, technological, and social models in which the fundamental vehicle with a micro combustion engine will ultimately dimmish in relevance. Organizations in a constantly disruptive condition could not sure regarding the future, thus they require to place bets (Kaufman, 2020). The company will focus on electrification as the most general source of car propulsion by 2030, involving hybrid cars, battery-electronic, and plug-in hybrid cars as well as cars of the future would be smart, which is have self-driving parts and communicated that is included in an innovative transportation functioning system (Kaufman, 2020). This would also make sure that electronic models would be those consumers most demands-SUVs and trucks.

Thinking of the organization in context of values. The company wants to get all of-killers out of the company lines of operations and kinds of functions, which are developing resources as well as not delivering returns (Wigginset al., 2018). This could be named as a profound re-concentration of the company’s functions. The company would re-systematized as important as well as decisive of all its operations as a core part of the business. The organization plans to minimize a huge $25 billion in expenses by 2022. The most predicted change was to proclaim the organization was dropping manufacturing of all however 2 fundamental sedan models in North America (Wigginset al., 2018). As critical as such decisions might have been culturally, demands simply was no longer current for these models. The company decides this might exit other unprofitable lines of operations.

Additionally, the organization is also concentrating on product engineering as well as material expenses, aiming cuts of around $4 billion and almost $10 billion respectively in 5 years.

Through evolving the product portfolio to the future; the company has done a severe evaluation of its organizational lines. Along with rejecting most of the sedans in the North America, this is coupling down on SUVs as well as the F-150 pickup-models in which demands and levels are healthy (Sawik, 2017). In this context with the company bets on the future, most of the company’s SUVs and trucks would be hybrid electric. Precisely after deciding on reallocating capital; the company pledged that it will change around $7 billion to the development of hybrid SUVs and trucks as well as almost $4.5 billion over 5 years already concentrated to electronic cars (Hosseiniet al., 2019). Rejection of sedans would free billions more in capital, which would be reallocated to the electronic vehicles’ investments. The company is trying for re-designing the consumer experiences as well as micro functions for reflecting the state of the art. This is related to the decisions of reducing complexities in the business operations and business process system. For instance, in 2017, consumers can order around 35,000 varied configurations of the company Fusion (Sawik, 2017). That level would decrease to around 96, minimizing complexities for consumers as well as functions alike. The company would minimize its different of parts through moving to the more parts, which are general around various kinds of cars. Additionally, the company would increase factories, which have much smaller footprints and faster logistics.

PART B (THEMES)
From the above case study of Ford Motor Company and Henry Ford’s management; certain international entrepreneurship themes have been identified. It has been underlined that; opportunity discovering procedure including aspects such as resource control and innovation is the main themes here (Ibehet al., 2018). For instance, the company is developing and developed on a century of innovations in the production of shaping the future of mass manufacturing. The company ensures majority of company’s income from manufacturing as well as selling vehicles to customers. It has been discussed that; Ford is interested in developing its cars to involve electronic cars and driverless vehicles (Bhise, 2017). The company also generated profits from its economic and leasing arms, which offer customers with vehicle loans and lease agreements. On the other hand, the company has also concentrated on another international entrepreneurship theme by commitment on diversity and inclusion through endorsing as well as processing the control of the resource groups.

The uncertainty management procedure is another significant theme of the international entrepreneurship (Reuber, 2018). Ford’s ESG investments would both decline downside risks as well as develop the upside importance on the longer term. The United States auto sector is bracing for alterations in the trading policy, which would ripple by North-American supply processes, impacting both the financials of national customers as well as the future of Ford’s staff (Lazdowski, 2020). Despite developments in the industry, car production remains a labour-intensive procedure, with employee driving important variable expenses in production.In fact, the company has specifically moved its lower-level manufacturing of vehicles to Mexico, where the employee costs are largely low than the United States and NAFTA makes sure the tariff-free and overseas trades (Longoet al., 2019). The company has also developed and implemented a policy of modernization along with diversification. The company is concentrated on the future and has developed an aggressive push for increasing factories automation with modified design technologies for supporting cost minimization. It could be said that, with the NASTA alterations on the level, and important cascading suggestions for all United States trading partners, the company would be concentrated on developing domestic system in its higher increase of international markets.

The consumer discovery process is one of the significant themes of the international entrepreneurship that includes the market discovery strategy and establishing trust with the international consumers as well (Ibehet al., 2018). Ford conducted its market research in person and online, redefining and making new information gathering procedures, which impacted the product development and marketing campaigns. It could be said that the company applied market research for understanding how far to push the designing concepts along with innovative features (Harrison, 2017). The company has done this through extracting data from customer survey and through having consumers to have open discussions with researchers in the specific focus groups. For refining a future niche car, market study currently took one external design and 2 micro designs for a consumer concentrated group in Georgia for asking questions regarding consumers’ likes and needs (Harrison, 2017). This international entrepreneurship approach of Ford includes designing team responsible for evaluating and interpreting the consumer feedbacks in the next stages of product developments.

References
Bhise, V.D., 2017. Automotive product development: A systems engineering implementation. CRC Press. corporate.ford.com. 2020. HENRY FORD BIOGRAPHY. [online] Available at: [Accessed 10 November 2020].

Encyclopedia Britannica. 2020. Ford Motor Company | History & Facts. [online] Available at: [Accessed 10 November 2020].

Harrison, A.J., 2017. The Pentagon's Pivot: How Lead Users are Transforming Defense Product Development. Defense Horizons, (82), p.1.

Hosseini, S., Morshedlou, N., Ivanov, D., Sarder, M.D., Barker, K. and Al Khaled, A., 2019. Resilient supplier selection and optimal order allocation under disruption risks. International Journal of Production Economics, 213, pp.124-137.

Ibeh, K., Jones, M.V. and Kuivalainen, O., 2018. Consolidating and advancing knowledge on the post-entry performance of international new ventures. International Small Business Journal, 36(7), pp.741-757.

Kaufman, K., 2020. How Ford Is Fighting Disruption | Kaufman Hall. [online] Kaufmanhall.com. Available at: [Accessed 10 November 2020].

Klein, R., 2019. The Evolution of Local Dealerships: The Backbone of the US Automobile Industry.

Lazdowski, Y.J., 2020. Persistence and Vigilance: A View of Ford Motor Company’s Accounting over its First Fifty Years.

Longo, F., Nicoletti, L. and Padovano, A., 2019. A system for supply chains diversification and (re) design: supporting managers' perspective in the face of uncertainty. International Journal of Logistics Systems and Management, 32(2), pp.168-194.

Reuber, A.R., 2018. Research themes about international entrepreneurship: Tales from the JIBS backlist and onward journeys. In International Entrepreneurship (pp. 1-28). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Sawik, T., 2017. A portfolio approach to supply chain disruption management. International Journal of Production Research, 55(7), pp.1970-1991.

Wiggins, C., Sheppard, S., Gilmartin, S., von Unold, B., Bjorklund, T. and Cruz, M., 2018, January. Coding for Culture, Diversity, Gender, and Identity: the Potential for Automation in Research. In Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference, June 24-27, 2018. Salt Lake City, Utah..

Appendix
INATIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP RECORDS
Company: Ford Motors
Entrepreneur: Henry Ford
Researcher:
Location:Dearborn, Michigan

Profile of Firm:

Demographic profile of Entrepreneur:

Motivation to start the business:

Future Plans: