General Motors, back in buisness !

General Motors aka GM went through its toughest period about a year and a half ago when they filed for bankruptcy June 1^st 2009.  GM was the biggest vehicle producer in the world in 2007, producing over 13 percent of the total and over 23 percent of the domestic sales. General Motors was able to survive the Great Depression and WWII so what made these past couple years of struggle different? There are a few different reasons for the bankruptcy including; poor management, a decrease in demand of their vehicles and increase in the price of their vehicles. One of the aspects contributing to the bankruptcy is poor management for the reason that the company was unorganized and the management skills were horrible. The demand in their vehicles went down due to the fact that their products weren’t their best quality or satisfying to consumers. The price of automobiles being jacked up because of the lack of demand for their vehicles.These were the three factors that all worked together to collapse the largest car manufacturing company in the world. General Motors not only affected the US, but the whole continent. Canada really felt the zing when GM went down because GM is what saved and gave many Canadians employment, when the company collapsed, if left several Canadian workers unemployed.

How did GM recover? To start the American and Canadian governments bailed GM out of their debt and now have ownership over the company. The American government owns roughly around 60% of the company and the Canadian government owning the other 40%. Executives say that the July sales results show its progress in managing inventories, reducing the cost on vehicles and building a better line up of advertising. GM went from having multiple brands before their down fall, to now only focusing on their four main brands; Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick, and GMC. By cutting down from their multiple brands to only four, they are guaranteeing better quality,  more efficient and advanced vehicles; fixing one of the factors contributing to their bankruptcy in the first place. General motors brought down their breakeven point from 16 million to 10 million, making them debt free; which fixed another one of the main reasons to their downfall.  GM is now taking environmentally friendly initiatives by creating flexible fuel vehicles, establishing automotive battery laboratory vehicles, all electric vehicles and hybrid electric vehicles.

The over one hundred year old American automaker had three main reasons for its ghost period which involved lack of management skill, low demand for cars, and high prices. Well they are no longer the automakers that went bankrupt, because as of this present week Gm is back on its feet and doing very well. They fixed most of their issues and worked on improving problems they faced to make the company stronger than ever. Gm is back and blooming in the US and is also growing in Canada. General Motors knew that that needed to change their ways and fix their problems if they were ever going to resume to being the number one car manufacturing company in the world, and so they did and are doing a spectacular job so far.

Blockbusters in America go Bankrupt

To this present day, all Blockbusters in the United States have gone bankrupt. The demand to rent or buy movies and games has decreased drastically, due to many new uprising resources. One big uprising resource that contributed to it's bankruptcy is the new website 'Netflix.com', an online movie rental website. People right now are loving this new website for many reasons. It is very convenient for people in many ways; it saves them time from driving to nearby Blockbusters and it saves them money on gas, which helps the environment. Instead they can stay home and rent a movie with the help of their credit cards. Netflix.com has everything Blockbusters were offering such; every genre of movies just in a more convenient and preferred place for a reasonable price of only $7.99 a month.

Another reason Blockbuster suffered bankruptcy is because there are a variety of online websites such as Isohunt, iTunes and many more who are offering movie downloads for free. Clearly, society would rather download it themselves on a safe website than have to go and pay to rent the movie. I personally think that if Blockbuster had offered online movie rentals and downloads, they could have been saved and dodged the downfall. Blockbuster is a very well known businesss for movie rentals so they would have no problems with publicity for their business, they would just have to put together an online rental service and their demand would have stayed strong. With all these easy access and convenient online websites rising up in the popularity bar, consumers demand to rent a movie or game from Blockbuster decreased, and because Blockbuster didn't do anything to try and save their business as they saw new resources on the rise, they dug their own grave and went bankrupt. Knowing that Blockbusters were becoming scarce because of their low demand, they should have done something to bring then on the same level as their competition if not even higher.

Canadian Blockbuster companies can learn from this situation and do what they need to do to prevent this scenario for themselves, like create and online free movie rentals and downloads website. Consumer preference and demand is number one, so if you keep your customers satisfied and happy your business will live. If Canada keeps their Blockbuster prices reasonable and have deals because deals attract consumers, and create convenience for consumers, their demand will still be there. Hopefully Canadian Blockbusters will learn from their good friends and do what they need to do to remain in demand.