Technology is changing all business models. That is the lesson that investors should take from General Motors, which is being attacked by Donald Trump and labour officials for laying off 14,300 and shuttering five factories in the US and Canada.
Both the US president and the unions are focusing on arguments about sending jobs to China and Mexico. But the biggest challenge GM is facing isn’t really one of labour costs, or outsourcing, or steel tariffs. It is the question of whether it will be able to own a large share of the economic value of the automobile industry in an era in which the car is becoming a smart device.
The case study on what not to do comes not from another carmaker, but from Nokia. Remember the once-mighty Finnish phonemaker? I used one of its brick-like handsets to type some of my first text messages back in the 1990s. Then Apple’s iPhone came along and Google’s Android operating system.