Scott Rountree, Todd Carter, Gregory Hilsgen, Aaron Niles, & Preston Birk
MGMT 5603 – Fall Online (2010)
October 01, 2010
Dr. Phil Lewis
Introduction
On May 21, 2001 Ford Motor Company and the Bridgestone /Firestone Tire company ended their 100 year relationship because the companies no longer had mutual respect for one another. The Ford Explorer hit the market in March of 1990. Since then, 203 deaths and over 700 injuries resulted from rollovers in the Ford Explorer after the tread of the Firestone tires separated. Auto safety data showed that both companies were to blame, but Ford blamed the deaths and injuries on the faulty Firestone tires and Firestone placed the blame on the design of the Ford vehicle. To recover from this scandal, the strategic plan for the next three years for Ford Motor Company is to take steps to regain the trust of its customers by applying more stringent safety testing on their vehicles and proving that the customer’s well being is more important to Ford than just the bottom line.
