When it comes to the history of the global automotive industry, one cannot forget William Crapo Durant. It was William Crapo Durant, not anyone else, who was the founder of General Motors, one of the three largest automotive corporations in the world today.
William Crapo Durant is regarded as an excellent manager and businessman, although his management style has been controversial. William Crapo Durant’s accomplishments in the automotive manufacturing industry in the early 20th century are admirable and commendable.
William Crapo Durant
Learning from “the school of life”
William Crapo Durant was born in 1861 in the city of Boston (USA) in a poor family. In 1875, when he was only 14 years old, Durant’s family moved to Flint, Michigan. As a young boy, William Crapo Durant was very intelligent and clever.
However, William Crapo did not succeed in his academic pursuit. It was all because of his tendency to do things his own way. In school, William Crapo Durant often questioned the teachers about what he thought was unreasonable.
At the age of 16, after a heated argument with the principal, William Crapo Durant decided to drop out of school to work and support himself and his mother. His mother was very sad but couldn’t dissuade her son.
William Crapo Durant was willing to do any job and showed a special talent for business. He first worked as a hired wood seller for a cousin. Shortly after, William Crapo switched to selling patent medicine. Seeing that selling cigarettes was more profitable, William Crapo Durant switched to selling cigarettes.
At the age of 18, seeing that William Crapo was energetic and agile, the owner of a real estate company invited him to work for him. Here, William Crapo Durant also learned the accounting profession. He also gained a lot of knowledge about finance and banking through selling home insurance for the company.
Through the introduction of the real estate company owner, William Crapo Durant started working for a clean water company in Flint. William Crapo Durant worked as an accountant for the company. Shortly after starting the job, the clean water company fell into a crisis and was at risk of bankruptcy. Despite being just an accountant, William Crapo Durant had deep and accurate insights into the causes of the crisis.
William Crapo Durant was promoted to a key position and this was a turning point for the clean water company. The great ideas and strong determination of William Crapo Durant helped the company survive. From the brink of bankruptcy, just two years after restructuring, the clean water company became profitable.
The success of the water company fueled William Crapo Durant’s desire for independence in business. William Crapo Durant was then less than 25 years old and full of ideas and aspirations to implement those ideas himself.
Entering the automobile industry through gambling with life
William Crapo Durant, at the age of over 20, did not show much interest in the nascent automobile industry. What was important to him was to have his own company. However, William Crapo Durant had almost no capital. He soon thought of borrowing from the bank. And everything he did afterwards required a lot of support from the banks. The banks stood behind him, providing support and supervision.
Together with his friend Durant Dort, in 1886, William Crapo Durant boldly borrowed $1,500 to buy a horse-drawn carriage manufacturing workshop. The Durant-Dort Company was established and specialized in producing horse-drawn wooden carts. With business acumen and skillful management, William Crapo Durant built a small enterprise.
The horse-drawn carriages sold very well and William Crapo Durant became a wealthy man, a well-known owner in Michigan. In 1895, William Crapo Durant’s company achieved record sales of horse-drawn carriages, totaling $75,000.
Not content with what he had achieved, he sought to invest in other assets. However, significant losses from participating in stock investments made him realize that his strength lay in managing operational businesses.
Furthermore, after more than 10 years of horse-drawn carriages in the golden age, William Crapo Durant also caught on to the trend that motor vehicles would replace horse-drawn carriages.
In 1905, William Crapo Durant decided to make a gamble of his life. No matter how much capital he had, William Crapo Durant put it all in to acquire Buick’s automobile manufacturing company, which was owned by a Scottish engine designer. Not having enough $1.5 million, William Crapo Durant had to turn to the banks for a loan.
William Crapo Durant, foreseeing the explosion of automobiles, poured all his efforts and time into building his own car manufacturing company. As the owner and director, William Crapo Durant personally managed everything from design projects, production organization, sales advertising to financial management.
He was deeply involved and specific to every detail, even though the company grew with thousands of employees. William Crapo Durant was ambitious and willing to invest heavily to achieve his goals.
The economic crisis at the end of 1907 caused many small and medium-sized companies to go bankrupt due to a lack of financial strength. Buick Motor Company was fortunate enough to survive, but William Crapo Durant realized that he needed to find new alliances in order to compete.
Founding the General Motors Corporation
William Crapo Durant had multiple meetings and negotiations with Henry Ford and Ransom Olds, who would later become his biggest competitors at General Motors. He also managed to mobilize investment funds from banks and acquired a series of small automotive equipment companies, merging and restructuring them into the production department of Buick Motors.
Once again, he played a risky gamble with many different small companies, while the parent company Buick was not much bigger. William Crapo Durant’s resolute and daring nature was also evident in the fact that the majority of the funds came from bank investments. Therefore, later on, he faced significant pressure and control from the banks.
In 1908, Buick Motors Corporation was renamed General Motors Corporation, with William Crapo Durant as a major shareholder and the first Chairman and CEO. In order to compete with other automobile manufacturers, especially Ford, who was growing rapidly, William Crapo Durant had to put in a lot of effort.
He had the strength in management but lacked the ability to design innovative models like Henry Ford. It was during a period when General Motors was struggling to come up with new car models to compete that William Crapo Durant had to step in with some unique and surprising ideas. He instructed his engineers to modify some details of the oldest car models and launch them on the market when there were no new models available.
All the engineers and technical staff shook their heads, but William Crapo Durant insisted on doing it because he was afraid there would be no new products to compete with. The Oldtimes cars, from the first generation, were required by Chairman William Crapo Durant to be wider and longer for a more comfortable sitting and stretching experience, and they were mass-produced.
The luxurious Cadillac line of General Motors was born from the oral orders of Chairman William Crapo Durant.
In 1911, under pressure from shareholders and banks, William Crapo Durant left the position of CEO of General Motors. However, immediately with the financial support of some investors, William Crapo Durant founded a new car manufacturing company, Chevrolet Motors. Just 3 years later, the car company of William Crapo Durant became profitable, to the surprise and admiration of many.
The net profit of Chevrolet Motors in 1915 reached over $1.3 million, while General Motors was struggling and losing money. William Crapo Durant, once again, returned as Chairman and CEO of General Motors.
William Crapo Durant made a significant contribution to General Motors’ substantial market share and its subsequent status as the world’s largest automobile corporation. After leaving General Motors, William Crapo Durant founded another family car manufacturing company named Durant Motors.
Thảo Anh (According to TTTĐ/ Source: Tổng hợp)
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