DETROIT — Ford Motor Co. reported Thursday that its fourth-quarter web earnings fell 90% from a year earlier, leading business authorities to state the automaker’s expenses are too high and to promise more belt-tightening this year.
CEO Jim Farley stated Ford must haveactually done muchbetter last year, and it left $2 billion in revenues on the table that were within its control. He stated Ford will appropriate that with enhanced seriousness and execution this year.
“These are the basic truths, and to state I’m disappointed is an understatement, duetothefactthat the year might haveactually been so much more for us at Ford,” Farley stated.
The business, he stated, is changing its item advancement, production and supply-chain management to minimize expenses, at the exactsame time it’s moving to electrical automobiles.
“We have deeply established problems in our commercial system that have tested hard to root out,” he stated. “The strength of our items and profits hasactually masked this dysfunctionality for a long time.”
The international lack of computersystem chips and other parts hit Ford tough at the end of last year, costing it production of approximately 100,000 lorries that might haveactually been offered, Chief Financial Officer John Lawler informed pressreporters.
“Our expense structure is not competitive, and our quality is not where it requires to be,” Lawler stated. He and Farley stated there will be more white-collar layoffs, and the business requires to cut production and guarantee expenses.
Lawler stated about $1 billion of the $2 billion in lost earnings was due to lower production and lost sales, the other $1 billion was in functional expenses. He associated about 60% of the production issue to the chip scarcity, with the rest coming from parts providers who had problem ramping up factories.
“It’s something that we requirement to do a muchbetter task handling through,” he