As you said, I have always believed it is those product planning and anal-yzing middlemen in GM are forcing them into loosing market share.
As much as they think they are looking at the bigger picture. They are ending up micromanaging.
They constantly think:
1. Not getting 2% of share because of X nix it. We will introduce something else.
2. BOF small trucks and SUVs tanking? Let us abandon the market altogether and bring another FWD Lambdas and they will take care of that. In the mean time let the market share go down. This future product will bring us VOLUME. In all the strategies I know and have seen, you cannot lose a ground altogether and expect to win a war when you are having upperhand. Abandoning markets is one of the worst mistakes. It is same as people selling stocks because of bad news. That is not foresight. Rather than shoring defenses, GM removes whatever defense they have. Look at BMW after being slammed on their 7 series for being butt ugly, they changed it within two years. Have you seen any GM product getting any tremendous mid cycle makeover to keep them going? They still believe "Oh the name has been maligned let us DUMP it." That shows lack of faith on their own system. Look at TOY. Three failed generations of Turd, yet they are trying. In contrast media slamming the TBlazer and Colo-Canyon. Four years into the cycle and we are yet to see any refresh, even the V8 is dumped. GM has partly maligned their own vehicles and their own Brands upto a certain extent.
3. Zeta wagon will have only 4% share. Why bother? Don't invest now. While we have invested 1.5B in its development which may not be recovered because of this shortsightedness.
4. Why GM needs stick shifts in trucks, mid size cars, or SUVs, when their market is only 4%. Why GM needs to have navigation when their market share is only 2%. Why GM needs to have Bluetooth, because the marketshare is only 3%. The right question should be WHY NOT?
These habits were in the 60-70's and it still persists today in GM. In yesterdays those strategies made sense because people wanted to transform themselves very many times and GM's market share commaded that to justify you lose some but gain more. Cars were yet to see the glory days and create fanbase and loyalties. In today's world people want change with reputation on their back. A little market share is dog eat dog world. In someways I am glad that GM ditched the old habit of renaming the Malibu after going through the transformation. You cannot reinvent yourself altogether in today's world. There has to be some "reputation" for people to fall back on to know who you are. Flamboyance is not key, it is appliance and macromanaging through microsteps. The more you look at the automobiles the more you see they are hardly bringing anything new to the table other than outdoing others. For outdoing others you should look for details and it is devil in the details. Which means even 1% share of a small segment is a detail.
Lutz may be bringing spectacular products, but in a wholistic picture the middlemen are still having a last laugh for their crummy ideas. GM's transformation will truly take place by removing these midgets who are too strong to GM's good and too weak to get removed.