"Starting in 1918 at General Motors I found to my surprise] that if I followed the prevailing practice of intercorporate relations I would no longer be able to determine the rate of return on investment for these accessory divisions individually or as a group. This would necessarily mean that I would lose some degree of managerial control over my area of operations. At that time, material within General Motors was passing from one operating division to another at cost, or at cost plus some predetermined percentage. My divisions in the United Motors Corporation had sold both to outside customers and to their allied divisions at the market price. I knew that I operated a profit-making group, and I wished to continue to be able to demonstrate this performance to the general management, rather than to have my operating results on interdivisional business swallowed up in the extra bookkeeping profits of some other division. It was a case of keeping the information clear."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Businesspeople from the United StatesMechanical engineersPhilanthropists from the United StatesPeople from New HavenBusiness theorists from the United States
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
p. 48
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Alfred_P._Sloan
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Alfred P. Sloan
Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr. (May 23, 1875 β February 17, 1966) was an American business executive in the . He was a long-time President, chairman and CEO of .
49 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Alfred P. Sloan β
Related Quotes
"I am sure we all realize that this struggle that is going on though the World is really nothing more or less than a cβ¦"
"The business of business is business."
"The transformation of the automobile market was essentially complete in 1929. If Mr. Ford, in that pivotal year in thβ¦"
"I then went on to suggest that we make a serious effort to gauge the demand over the next five to ten years, and makeβ¦"
"In the 1920... the closed body rose to dominance, the Model T came to an end, and the upgrading of cars began. The evβ¦"
"I hold that if companies are attacked simply because they are big then an attack on efficiency must be a corollary ofβ¦"
"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rβ¦"
"By The middle of The 1920s General Motors had accomplished some things, but apart from survival and reorganization, tβ¦"
"Competition is the final price determinant and competitive prices may result in profits which force you to accept a rβ¦"
"Before World War II management was the concern of a tiny band of βtrue believers,β mostly consultants and professors.β¦"