本田公司的首席执行官让精打细算的人毁了Company's Cars

Honda has made some pretty damn boring cars over the past few years. That trend isn't likely to continue in the future, at least not if CEO Takahiro Hachigo has his way. Norihiko Shirouzu of Reuters is reporting that Hachigo is going to reduce the influence those from sales and marketing have on car design. Shirouzu was given this information by two Honda execs who spoke off the record. This should be good news for everyone who lamented the stagnation of Honda's cars, especially the ninth-generation Civic which wasthe definition of uninspired.

So just how gummed up were the works? Here's one of the anonymous execs talking about how bad things got. "Over the years, our product development process became overly complex and slow, involving a huge number of engineers and sales and marketing people. We began producing watered down, uninspiring, what you might call designed-by-committee, cars." Sheesh, that is some unflinching honesty right there. The second executive that Shirouzu spoke to discussed the increasing influence of the sales team with regard to product planning. "Sales people involved in product planning are more focused on customers' immediate needs."