General Motors was the largest automobile company in the world; the firm had previously held the title of largest automaker in the world for 77 years. Even though the company has a competitive advantage in the automobile industry, financial problems existed before the epidemic even started. General Motors lost $806 million and used up $7.8 billion in cash in the final quarter of 2020, and the CEO described this as one of the company’s most difficult periods.
The company has been having financial problems, which have been brought on by a number of circumstances, all of which are related to how the corporation structures its financial affairs. Generous coverage expenditures, which include healthcare costs for the company’s employees, total more than $5.6 billion annually and have a significant negative impact on their profitability. The corporation employs 145,000 people in total, and their annual healthcare costs come to $5.2 billion (Garg, 2020). When taking this into account, an employee uses $15,000 annually, which is more than the price of one car. The business also offers a program whereby it pays its staff to return to school while continuing to pay them. It is reported that GM has a total cost disadvantage of $125,000 more than its non-US competitors when a job bank is included to the insurance. This puts the corporation in a difficult situation because, even before creating a car, they have a $125,000 gap (Wayland, 2022). When all of this is considered, it becomes clear that General Motors’ cost of products sold has been falling over the previous ten years, making it much more difficult for the business to remain viable.
