Four years after Cadillac packed up and moved its headquarters to New York City, New York, newly minted brand president Steve Carlisle will keep the luxury division settled in the Big Apple.
The Detroit Free Press reported on Thursday that Cadillac has no plans to move back to Detroit, Michigan, following ex-president Johan de Nysschen’s sudden ouster in April.
“It’s 100 percent that we’re staying here, that was never a question,” said Andrew Lipman, a Cadillac spokesman.
Although the move was controversial at the time, analysts now say it was the right move. And despite rumors, GM had the move planned ahead of de Nysschen’s arrival at Cadillac. The brand is now a global luxury brand, and not only a Detroit staple. Cadillac has made major strides in China, and the NYC image plays well with global gains.
The NYC area also makes it easier to attract new talent who may be turned off by a Detroit relocation, analysts said in the report.
Carlisle will commute to Detroit or any other location as needed but will be based in NYC with the rest of Cadillac’s employees in the SoHo neighborhood. Lipman added NYC is a short flight from Detroit and Cadillac is, ultimately, “still very much a part of GM and proudly so.”
Comments
Good.
“Although the move was controversial at the time, analysts now say it was the right move.”
And those “analysts” are…? And it was “the right move” because…?
Beat me to it…How much are NYC’s monthly operating costs, Detroit’s monthly operating costs and the monthly employee travel costs?
That sounds just like the pencil pushers that try to de-content and cost-cut everything that GM puts out. We are then left with rental car caliber vehicles that have poor quality and terrible resale.
It was the right move because top talent has no desire to live in fly over country. Detroit lacks the amenities wealthy workers want.
In China, presenting Cadillac as a NYC brand gives the brand a leg up in the luxury realm. I do agree with Johan that high end products, may they be Kate Spade or Cadillac, benefit from NYC brand. Americans will never notice but the halo effect will be good globally.
Buick Blue would benefit from California’s Silicon credibility as Tesla has. EVs fail at Chevrolet but Buick’s price point is ideal for upmarket electric cars. In the States Buick EVs would youthen the brand and give the Tri Shield a unique global purpose of premium electric excellence.
VERY good!! NYC is the center of the world, that is were Cadillac will benefit from hiring it’s talented people! Talented people gravitate to cities which are prosperous and are growing like NYC! t.y.
Is there any prestige in Mercedes being in Stuggart or BMW being in Munich? Would they do better moving to Berlin? Seriously?
Just build the best automobiles. You’ll earn your prestige!
Cadillac’s move to New York has never been and is not about prestige. It is about being separate from GM, which (in its current form) has a culture that does not inspire nor enable making the best luxury cars.
It’s a move that aims to enable focus, remove distractions, establish a Cadillac culture (rather than a GM culture that’s partially Cadillac)… all things that were not possible with Cadillac being in the same building as Chevrolet.
It also enables Cadillac to attract an entirely different talent base for the purposes of employment, people who are knowledgeable and skilled but would never move to Detroit, had Cadillac still been there.
The expense related to the move pale in comparison to the benefits generated by it.
Who championed this NYC move in the first place, private jets don’t have the range to make it from the US to say South Africa (and many GM business-related locations) so are there nonstop/direct flights from Detroit to South Africa and in which states did the former Cadillac CEO own property, BEFORE he accepted the job? 😉
Spot on.
Spot on, Alex, I mean.
This is still largely a fail because if GM’s culture is a problem then the solution is to fix it. Not run from it. So all brands benefit. Is the firing of Nysschen proof you can’t run from a sick culture? I dunno. I don’t work there but it may be a hint.
I also don’t buy the argument talent won’t go to Detroit. Now if you’re right about GM’s culture being sick that’s a deterrent.
“This is still largely a fail because if GM’s culture is a problem then the solution is to fix it.”
Not necessarily.
GM’s culture works fine for mainstream vehicles (Chevy) and premium-ish vehicles (Buick, GMC)… but it does not work well for Cadillac.
It’s this GM culture that is responsible for major disadvantages/let-downs in current Cadillac vehicles, from the ATS and CTS to the CT6 and Escalade. All of these are okay from a product standpoint, but could have been so much better if a focused team of *Cadillac people* worked on them in unison.
Overall, the GM culture negatively impacts Cadillac from a product standpoint in the current and short terms, but it also goes beyond product and the current/short-term, and overflows into negatively impact Cadillac in the long term – as the GM culture is very risk averse and short-sighted… both elements that run contrary to what Cadillac needs at this point in time.
“Fixing that” is not necessarily possible, nor is it necessarily the right answer. The better answer is to bring in the investment and let Cadillac do what it needs to do … which is exactly what’s being done. It’s the most effective way, both in terms of time and cost… so there isn’t really a problem here.
And if you don’t “buy the argument talent won’t go to Detroit”, you obviously haven’t tried it. It’s tough… and it represents a major obstacle. People simply would rather live elsewhere… which is why the overwhelming majority of college grads move out of Michigan to live elsewhere after graduating.
Honestly, you just wrote a handful of platitudes that mean absolutely nothing.
What’s that Audi phrase? ‘Truth in Engineering’ – build the best vehicles at the best prices, and the customers will come, wallets in hand. Cadillac being in NYC takes money away that would be better spent acquiring better interior / exterior materials to craft a luxury vehicle that _exceeds_ what’s offered by BMW, Mercedes, and Lexus.
Cadillac must _exceed_ what its competitors are offering in the marketplace to steal market share. The materials / design of the XT4 look very pedestrian. Does anyone honestly think this vehicle will steal market share? I don’t. Just more of the same excuses from Cadillac / General Motors apologists.
General Motors needs a real Mensch like Marcionne to captain this ship. FCA is going to clean GM’s clock/margins once they put out the Wagoneer / Grand Wagoneer / mid-size pickup in late 2019/early 2020.
“General Motors needs a real Mensch like Marcionne to captain this ship.”
Marcionne can’t even get Chrysler to command Dodge money. To screw up that badly, only FCA could have done it. Cadillac needs no such advice from that idiot.
Funny you should mention Dodge – Charger and Challenger are demolishing Camaro sales. The six gen. Camaro has been a total disaster.
See? That’s the problem. Concentrating on unit sales instead of ATP.
Tell me why a Chrysler 300 is incapible of commanding the price of a Demon? Why is that the American luxury arm of FCA can’t even beat its down-market brother ATP, and that Dodge is more of a luxury brand than Chrysler is?
FCA’s American operations would be better if Chrysler was worthy of respect. Instead, FCA has conditioned the public to accept Chrysler as being worth half of a Dodge. Don’t tell me that Marcionne knows anything about selling luxury products, and don’t side-step into monthly unit sales of non-luxury products thinking that it matters more than the margins.
Challenger is a much bigger car and the Charger is a sedan..
How has that NY talent evidenced itself?
Just asking – It seems like the Manhattan Project would have proven itself to be a legitimate, surprising, somewhat successful endeavor by now – Johan’s gone, Uwe’s gone, Lee is gone –
The proof should be in the product and mktng, and it doesn’t appear to be there …
Again, this isn’t a plug-and-play effort, where you relocate offices and suddenly start seeing different/better results. In fact, you might see worse results for the first x amount of months as the culture molds and is established.
As has been said before, the move to NYC is meant to deliver a cultural shift within Cadillac that removes the “GM think” that Cadillac has been riddled with for the past 30 years, while instituting a separate, unique culture. They now have the right place to do it… now it’s about doing it. Of course, JdN was the leader on the culture change… and we all know how that went.
“The proof should be in the product and mktng, and it doesn’t appear to be there …”
You sure about that?
It’s possible that the move to NYC may eventually pay off for Cadillac. However, the question is – what evidence is there to make the statement “it WAS the right move”, and who are the “analysts” that have said this publicly?
It seems to me that trophies are being handed out simply for making the move, rather than the results produced by the move. But if it was a questionable move in the first place, then there’s no evidence (of which I’m aware) that removes the question.
What we have seen since the move is some sub-par advertising and some uninspiring copycat products, mainly the XT4. If the proof is in the pudding, the NYC pudding thus far is watery and tasteless.
NYC attracts talent myth…Talent myth example:
Candidate A: “I love NYC and will leave Cadillac if they ever relocate”
Candidate B: “I love Cadillac, I’ll happily relocate to NYC, Detroit or anywhere”
Ask the public: “Where are Cadillac, GMC or Buick headquarters right now?” and you’ll be surprised how many get it wrong…
Where else would you go in the world to see and be on the cutting edge of high-status and luxury products. It’s sure as hell not Detroit.
Is a $35K Caddy really as “high-status” as a Ferrari?
I think Chevy cars ( not trucks/Suvs and D’ette) should also move to LA, Houston, DFW, Atlanta, maybe NYC to 1. a market that represents white/blue collar workers 2. attract better talent in order to put out something better then the rental cars they have outside the V8 cars.
Don’t suppose the massive real estate lease they’re locked into entered into the decision …
How do you know they are locked into anything, especially something “massive”?
Actually ( if this gets printed ) Detroit is on a bit of a Renaisance attracting new talent and new business’s from younger people .
It doesn’t matter where you are setting up a business , it is how successful your product is .
Oh please. Detroit has been “on a bit of a renaissance” for the last decade… and while things have undoubtedly improved, the so-called renaissance is a drop in the bucket when it comes to attracting talent… compared to the talent major developed cities are attracting.
“It doesn’t matter where you are setting up a business , it is how successful your product is.”
The successful product argument. Let’s think it through, shall we?
For Cadillac to have “successful product”, it must have the best product – bar none. It’s a challenger and that means that its product must not only be as good as the competition, but it must be even better… with no negative marks against it. This means that Cadillac can’t skimp in any area or aspect of the car.
From a strategic standpoint, this means that they must have a bulletproof plan on which they must execute flawlessly, day in and day out. To accomplish both of those tasks, they must have the best employees that are happy and motivated, and you must establish your own identity and culture – a Cadillac culture, not a GM culture that calls itself Cadillac. And that brings us to the crux of the matter: Cadillac’s options to attract the best of the best is extremely limited when it is in Detroit. It’s as simple as that.
I can bring up countless examples of why this is the case, but I think the reasons are well known and quite obvious. The bottom line is that a professional looking to take the next step in his or her career considering between a job in New York City and the same-paying job in Detroit (with the same/similar benefits) is going to lean away from Detroit and toward New York. Detroit is simply not “sexy” enough, and has way too many challenges associated with it.
So yes, the product must be successful… and when looked at from a very general theoretical standpoint, you’re right in saying that it doesn’t matter where you set up business. But when you start implementing that theory, it starts to matter very much.
I’d like you to cite one example of Cadillac’s NYC office offering a single feature/ piece of material on a current or future Cadillac vehicle that beats the competition.
Super Cruise was engineered in Markham (outside of Toronto) by the way.
That’s not how it works. There is no engineering done in NYC, only decisions made with respect to the exclusivity of Cadillac are. Whatever made you think that in the first place?
/whoosh – that sound you heard was the subtext of the comment you replied that went right over your heard, that you in your reply, just admitted – Cadillac NYC adds nothing of value.
…and there’s absolutely nothing exclusive about Cadillac. The sales number outside of the Escalade and XT5 (and XT5 numbers aren’t really that impressive after you normalize the sales data against industry SUV increases – all boats rise in a rising tide) have been declining precipitously.
I’ve told you before. ATP is more important than unit sales, and always has been.
As for the having the decision making in New York, it’s better to be on the pulse of the world there instead of learning about what was cool 3 years later in Detroit. Of course, you can’t quantify those decisions, and since (in your case) it can’t be measured, therefore it must be a wash in your eyes.
I think it’s fair to say you’ve already outed yourself as not being a luxury consumer. I’m sure you’ll try to come back with some nonsense about monthly sales figures that will prove nothing.
What the hell does a luxury customer outside of New York City (most luxury customers live outside of a single city – shocking!) care that Cadillac is headquartered in NYC? It’s an absolute waste and everyone knows it.
And yeah, last time I checked vehicle sales/profitability are relevant. And in those two metrics, Cadillac has been a dog for 30 years now, letting BMW/Mercedes/Audi/Lexus steal market share.
Numbers don’t lie, and nonsense like what you’ve spouted doesn’t pay the bills.
Truth is in vehicle engineering and material composition. Nothing else matters.
/waves bye from my Jeep Grand Cherokee Overland
“hurr durr, Jeep quality sucks! That’s no luxury vehicle”
Well then FCA has a lot of people fooled then – they can’t make enough Jeep Grand Cherokees.
Sadly new GM looks no better than bankrupt GM in the way it fumbles from one bad idea to another. The revolving door of managers at Cadillac is appalling. Although I like Cadillac House in NYC, they are also around the world, having been in business over 40 years and with Cadillac and Rolls-Royce over 35 years, the NYC thinking is misguided.
I think someone else has just said this, build the BEST cars, have the BEST styling, build some or all of the fabulous concept cars, develop some guts, hire BETTER people and build the BEST. Buyers will buy. Job done.