An Analysis of Ford Motor Company: Supply Chain Strategy.

... Executive Summary As competition in the automobile industry escalated throughout the 1990's, automakers sought to leverage the emergence of information technologies to lower costs and deliver a richer customer experience. Ford, the number two automaker in the world, was no exception and saw computer maker, Dell Corporation, as a benchmark for aggressive use of emerging technologies to increase shareholder value and improve customer responsiveness. Teri Takai's responsibility as Director of Supply Chain Systems was to explore opportunities for incorporating such information technologies to achieve these corporate goals and to find the optimal level of investment in technology that would maximize the return on investment. Takai's decision was further complicated by the opinions formed by two factions within the Company, one group decidedly in favor of moving towards utilizing information technology to create a new procurement system and the other group more cautious given the differences between the auto industry and the

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