Galhotra pointed to his North America team as an example of how Ford Motor wants to “fundamentally change” how it operates.
After Galhotra was promoted to his position last year, he took over the 11th floor of Ford’s headquarters, converting executive offices into “franchise rooms” for individual nameplates.
The franchise rooms — there are 17, up from 13 — have moved to the nearby Regent Court office buildings, where Ford’s marketing operations are based. They take up three floors in two towers.
Each Wednesday, Galhotra’s team devotes one hour to each room and pores over issues from vehicle profitability to availability of specific trims or powertrains.
“With any big company, you run the risk where managing the calendar gets in the way of making decisions,” he said. “If a team needs to talk to product development or IT, just aligning those calendars can delay a decision by a week or three weeks. We’ve committed to our teams that we as a leadership team are here for them. It’s a big commitment, but it reduces bureaucracy and speeds up decision-making.”
The question nagging at Ford’s shareholders and remaining employees is whether the cuts, which the company says will include 800 layoffs in the U.S., go deep enough. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas suggested more layoffs might be necessary, but Ford pushed back strongly against the idea.
In a note to investors, Jonas, who has butted heads with Hackett on earnings calls over a lack of transparency around Ford’s plans, said the company might need to eliminate “more than 23,000” additional salaried jobs.