In an internal e-mail, GM Europe President Nick Reilly indicated that The General would continue to use the Vauxhall brand in the UK. That announcement should not have come as too much of a surprise, as the former Vauxhall General Operations Manager has close ties to the company. What were refreshingly different were the changes he outlined in The General’s European strategy. Full text of the five page document, which was received by tens of thousands of employees, can be found here.

First and foremost, Mr. Reilly rejected hiring an outside consultant to devise a mission statement, instead submitting an internally developed working vision statement:

To be a leading European Manufacturer of high quality, desirable automotive products, based on German Engineering, driven by a united team of professionals and respected around the world.

In identifying specific steps to achieve that vision, he first distinguished Vauxhalls and Opels, allotting the former for Brits and the latter for everyone else. In a departure from previous goals, ‘everyone else’ encompasses more than merely Europeans. If Opel products are to be “respected around the world,” the the impetus is on the company to “look for opportunities to sell Opel products outside Europe.”

Mr. Reilly, who also served as President of GM International Operations, has a unique perspective on the expansion. Acknowledging non-European sales as a historical weak point and noting that a strong Euro makes such exports even harder, he suggested that desirable products and a positive image will be the keys to growing exports. The products and image motif ran throughout the memo. While he emphasized superior products as more important, he conceded that GM’s image in Europe requires more work. It is from this theme that what will inevitably be the most quoted line from this directive emerges: (more…)