The safety and informative service, OnStar, that comes as a standard on most new GM model cars has been the driving point for GM for years. OnStar is a device that is mounted inside the mirror of a car in which vehicle owners pay a subscription that gets them emergency road service, track a car if it is stolen or to determine when and where an accident happened to get medical attention to the scene as quick as possible. Since it first came out in 1996, it has been convincing consumers to purchase GM vehicles over the competition. That was the catch for OnStar – it only came on GM vehicles.
Recently, GM came out with OnStar FMV (For My Vehicle) and is selling the OnStar mirror at places like Best Buy. Consumers just need to purchase the mirror and it can be installed on about any vehicle, letting other car brands use the OnStar technology. This was a smart move for GM to do, working with other companies to offer OnStar to the masses. GM had to create product development teams to find a way that the technology of GM and OnStar would work reliability on other car brands. These teams had to work together to create a product that consumers would want and that would better benefit GM. Now, since GM has offered the product to the public, those product development teams are done with their task and the group most likely broke up. This is the most common team type when companies are trying to create new ideas to introduce to the consumer. It may take a long time to reach a conclusion, but once it is found, there is no reason to keep the teams intact, so they break up or move to other assignments.
When making this agreement to make OnStar available to other vehicles, I am sure that there was a lot of conflict, intrapersonal and interpersonal, happening at GM. Since OnStar has been a staple for only GM vehicles for the past years, it had to be hard to get that open up to all vehicles. It makes the OnStar not as inclusive anymore. The business leaders had to think about what it would do for them and their company to open up OnStar to anyone. This internal conflict is known as interpersonal conflict. The conflict that could have come up with stockholders and other members of the public is known as intrapersonal conflict.
Do you think that GM is doing the right thing for their business offering OnStar to other vehicles? How high would you value teamwork in creating a project like this? What other ways could conflict arise with this new development? Do you think that some level of conflict is necessary to create a successful business idea?
--Kristi Rudin
I think making OnStar available for other vehicles could go either way. It could benefit GM or hurt them. It could benefit them because they are now offering the service of OnStar to any vehicle which will bring in more customers. It could hurt GM because GM was the only car maker that offered OnStar. This put them at an advantage. A person who is looking to buy a car and GM was one of their options, the person may have bought the car from GM because of the OnStar option and now that person could go buy a different car and still have OnStar.
ReplyDeleteCreating product development teams to make OnStar available for other vehicles was a great decision. The service of OnStar for other cars was probably made availabe earlier than if product development teams were not used. By using teams, there is a greater generation of ideas which everyone in the team builds off. I am sure there was conflict between people who wanted to offer the service of OnStar to other vehicles and those who did not want to offer the service. This would cause a conflict with stockholders who did not want to offer the service to other vehicles. Some level of conflict is good. When there is a moderate level of conflict it means that there is a debate of ideas. Too much conflict can lead to violence and too little conflict could lead to low performance.
-Steven Stanek