Now think about what a strategy shift like this involves for a company with 200,000 employees. Old ways of doing things had to be dismantled and unlearned as new structures, systems, and processes were put in place. Product development had to be overhauled. Production capacity had to be reduced. Labor agreements had to be renegotiated. Marketing needed to be revamped. Four years into the process, Mulally estimates it will take another three years for 80 percent of Ford’s products to be built on global platforms.
