How Ford Brand Made It to Today?

The Ford brand is now an automotive giant with a net income of $1.2 billion and revenues of $4.4 billion. The total value of all assets owned by the company is estimated to be $267.2 billion. How did this brand, with nearly 200,000 employees under its roof, come to this point? Here is the history of the automotive giant, Ford.

The Ford Company was founded by Henry Ford on June 16, 1903, in the United States. Henry Ford made a $28,000 investment in this company with only 12 employees. The passionate entrepreneur started working to produce the first motor vehicle for his newly established company. With his equally passionate team, he managed to create the first car model in just one miraculous month. He then released this model to the market on July 20, 1903.

After the success of the first vehicle introduced to the market, the company launched another vehicle called the Ford Model T. The team working within the company was so passionate that Henry Ford, as a goodwill gesture, gave each of them a Ford Model T as a gift. As business improved and the brand grew, Henry Ford rewarded the performance of his employees by increasing their salaries and reducing working hours. While Henry Ford's benevolent treatment of his workers drew criticism from other companies, it received public support, and Ford quickly gained control of more than half of the U.S. automotive sector.

Challenges Faced by the Ford Brand and the Innovations It Brought to the Industry

Although Henry Ford was pleased to have control over more than half of the U.S. automotive sector, he was bothered by the high costs and the long completion time of vehicles. Henry Ford hoped to overcome this problem by transitioning to mass production. As he foresaw, vehicles that used to be completed in a few days could now be completed and released to the market on the same day with mass production. With mass production, vehicles were produced in a gradual manner as they moved along a conveyor belt. Henry Ford's innovation of mass production not only accelerated production but also significantly reduced costs. Henry Ford's innovation in mass production marked the beginning of Industry 2.0 in the United States.

World War I posed great challenges to the Ford brand. War conditions and economic difficulties were causing Ford-owned factories to close one by one. However, the end of the war marked the beginning of a new era for the company, and Ford began to grow even faster by establishing new factories all over Europe.