Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. (1875-1966) was an American business executive who led General Motors as president, chairman and chief executive for over three decades. He reorganized GM around a multi divisional structure with a distinct brand for each price tier, from Chevrolet to Cadillac, and introduced the annual model change and a program of planned styling updates that reshaped how automobiles were designed, marketed and replaced. Under his leadership GM overtook Ford to become the largest automobile manufacturer in the world. His management practices influenced corporate organization far beyond the car industry, and he later endowed the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
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Why is Alfred P. Sloan remembered as a management pioneer as well as a car executive?
Sloan gave General Motors price-tier divisions with central administration, a structure many other corporations copied.
Britannica describes Sloan as an administrative genius who turned General Motors from a loose cluster of business units into an archetype of the modern business enterprise. He reorganized the company into five automobile divisions, each producing cars in a different price range. He decentralized production, giving each operating division the freedom of initiative to compete for more business, while centralizing administration in a strong central office. Many other corporations emulated this structure through much of the 20th century.
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Sources
1. Alfred P. Sloan (Wikipedia)
Lead, birth/death parenthetical
1875-1966
Lead, opening sentence
American business executive
In Group: Industrialists and Transport Entrepreneurs, Lead sentence
Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr. ( SLOHN; May 23, 1875, February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the automotive industry.
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