The Business Research Blog

GM is reorganizing its sales and marketing organization for the third time in the last nine months.  They are eliminating general managers for the brands and moved a bunch of people around, having more sales heads report directly in to North America President Mark Reuss.  The idea is to make the organization flatter and more responsive to try to execute on Ed Whitacre’s more aggressive growth plans.

The organization at GM is byzantine enough that it’s hard to tell what’s really going on, but I get the impression that this is basically musical chairs.  A bunch of executives who had responsibility for sales and marketing are now either sales or marketing.  Unless the reorganization extends to middle management and somehow changes core processes or culture, moving a few people around seems unlikely to make a real difference.

I am glad that GM reduced its overall brand lineup, slimmed down the dealer ranks, and cut spending on incentives.  So the company does seem to be making progress on a variety of fronts, but I wonder whether this reshuffling of the executive ranks will be more of a distraction than an improvement.

Anyone who’s familiar with GM have thoughts on this that you’d like to share?

On a side note, GM is tweeting up a storm at @GMblogs, but I find it hilarious that they have neither @GM nor @GeneralMotors.  Problems with Twitter squatters?