Going Multinational

The Common Market has prompted quite a few Western European businesses to integrate across national boundaries, and U.S. companies which operate there are rapidly following suit. Dow Chemical and Jersey Standard have both centralized European operations, and so to a lesser degree have IBM and International Telephone & Telegraph. The latest American company to join the trend also happens to be one of the largest. Ford Motor Co., which has heretofore overseen all of its overseas activities from the U.S., is setting up a European-based subsidiary, Ford of Europe, Inc. The new subsidiary, says Chairman Henry Ford II, should provide "on-the-scene coordination" of the company's operations on the Continent.

The subsidiary will watch over the automaker's main European production affiliates, Ford of Britain and Ford of Germany, as well as its sundry assembly, and product-development activities elsewhere in Europe. Actually, the kind of coordination envisioned for the new setup is already evident in some of Ford's Continental operations. European production of Ford's light vans, for example, is so integrated that their front axles are manufactured in Britain, rear axles in West Germany.

The man who will head the Europe-wide subsidiary is John S. Andrews, 53, a tall Texan who was general manager of Ford of Germany until he returned to Detroit as the parent company's European vice president in 1965. During seven years on the job in Germany, Andrews launched a period of growth that has seen Ford's share of the German auto market increase from 7% to 18%. In his new post, he will try to help Ford weather the effects of European recession. Last year the company's auto sales were off 12% in Britain, 5% in Germany.

While Ford of Europe will continue to be largely American-run, national operations henceforth will be significantly de-Americanized. As part of the same shuffle that brings Andrews to Europe, Max Ueber will become Ford of Germany's first native managing director since World War II. Similarly, Leonard Crossland, a Briton, will succeed an American as general manager of British Ford. All of which should go a long way toward making Ford a truly multinational company.

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