Ford CEO dismisses "old versus new" economy labels
By Ilaina Jonas
NEW YORK, April 5 (Reuters) - As head of a company that's been around for nearly a century, Jacques Nasser, chief executive of Ford Motor Co. (NYSE:F - news), finds the notion of an old versus a new American economy, well, old.
``The whole question of old and new is outdated, and it's so last century in terms of thinking,' Nasser, chief executive and and president of the world's second largest auto company, told a group of business executives on Wednesday. Ford ranks behind General Motors Corp., the world's largest auto maker.
``I don't see it as a battle between the dot-coms versus brick-and-mortar businesses, and I really get irritated at the very silly and simplistic tag lines that have been used to describe what's going on in the business world.'
Nasser said that success for traditional businesses lies in their embracing technology to mine the visionary and brain power of employees and raising the curtains that separate various sectors of companies to transform established industry.
``It's not about economic models,' Nasser told an audience of traditional business executives attending an e-commerce conference in New York. ``It's how we can effectively use this technology. That's what e-commerce is. It's new technology that opens up tremendous, exciting business possibilities.'
Ford has embraced new methods of doing business, with its Ford.com Web site for car sales, by giving each of its 400,000 employees a computer and printer for their home for free, by focusing on making Internet-ready automobiles, and with its plans to form a business-to-business exchange where car makers can buy from suppliers.
``This e-commerce has been the most important, the most intense, the most compelling technology that we've ever had available to us to be able to transform the business to improve the skills of our people,' he said. ``It's about getting our business more efficient. It's about getting to the market more quickly. It's about becoming more focused, more integrated, more transparent. It's about becoming simple as a business and becoming more consumer-focused.'
Nasser said older industries can rejuvenate themselves with technology and a trained workforce comfortable with technology acting as a fountain of youth.
``There hasn't been a better time, I don't think, in business to serve the customer, and to reinvent the company and the industry from the inside out and the outside in,' he said.
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