Tripling sales with more models but fewer German imports

摘要

VOLKSWAGEN'S NEW U.S. chief, Stefan Jacoby, is shaking up the company's corporate culture, moving its headquarters from Detroit to suburban Washington, D.C. But his far bigger task is to bolster VW of America's profit margins (currently squeezed by the strong euro) and crank up sales from 235,000 units in 2006 to 800,000 by 2018, a lofty- perhaps even preposterous-goal. It took the Germans a while to learn their lesson, but they now know that pricing is key in the U.S. auto market, where you are either premium, inexpensive, or very nearly dead. So VW will boost supply from low-cost countries such as Mexico while reducing German imports to a minimum. The new strategy is to sell small numbers of premium German imports, but at a profit, and to make more money on mainstream products built elsewhere.