Industry Research Completion Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Industry Research Completion - Essay Example According to Domansky and Williams (2006), the global automotive industry encompasses a few principal manufacturers such as General Motors, Toyota, Honda, Ford, Volkswagen and DaimlerChrylser that serve the global market. The globalization of automobile industry has resulted from the setup of overseas facilities and mergers between firms in recent times. The joint venture of General Motors and Toyota in New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. and Fiat holding an 85% stake in Ferrari are examples of such mergers. The Automobile Industry is one of the most important industries in the world, employing millions of people, generating billions of dollars in world revenues, placing more than 806 million vehicles on the roads, accelerating the business and commercial activities and linking person to person, area to area and country to country. It is more than a 100 years old. It came into existence in Germany and France and later grew in USA as a result of mass production. However, Papatheodorou and Harris (2007) state that considering the level of employment and revenue it generates, the industry is suffering from financial crisis with profit margins falling from 20% in 1920s to 5% in 2007. This may be due to the maturity of automobile markets in developed countries. According to Encarta Online Encyclopedia (2009), the Automobile Industry has tried to reduce the cost of transportation through mass marketing, mass production and globalized production. The world is headed towards the crisis of recession and economic slump which is expected to reduce automobile sales worldwide. The present economic downturn has proven to have hit the automobile industry sharply and there has been rapid decline in the sales of the industry. Political and economic instability, credit crunch, banks being more particular about auto financing and the rising prices of cars has impacted the