Interesting story on VW's history from an insider

[hooba]

Found in a discussion post here - Don


Bertel Schmitt
August 20th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
I was there when Volkswagen reinvented themselves. I still have the (internal) strategy book. I helped writing it. Its was called “Die Grosse Entkäferung” – “The Great Debugging.”

Virginia rightly says: “Pretend your company’s existence is at stake, coldly evaluate the environment, and make choices.”

Volkswagen did not have to pretend. Their existence was at stake. They made choices. A lot of choices were made for them. Passat, Scirocco, Golf, Polo. These were cars made out of desperation. If they would have had more time and focus groups, these cars would have never happened. They just happened to be the right cars at the right time. They turned the company, they changed the automotive landscape.

You know how they go into China? In November 1978, a guy in a Mao suit, followed by several guys in Mao suits, walked up to the gate at Wache Sandkamp and said “I am Chou Tzu Tsian the Minister of Machine Building of China. I want to see the boss.” The guy at the gate didn’t dare to call Carl Hahn, who was the boss. He called W.P. Schmidt, head of sales. He invited them up. They turned out to be real.

Hahn had the foresight to say “Yes, let’s do it.” If that guy in the blue Mao suit would not have walked up to the gate, if the people at Mercedes where he was before would not have treated him so condescendingly, history would have taken a much different turn.

At that time I was 28. At that time, I heard the first time: “Bertel, market saturation is 500 cars per thousand. Some day, when we are all dead, a billion people in China will drive hundreds of million of cars.” Now THAT was strategy.

I am glad that I am still alive to witness the beginnings of that strategy bear fruits.

[Mk3 AAA]

I can tell you first hand that there is a staggering amount of VW and V AG in China, strategy = successful.