Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions
Faculty & Research
  • Faculty
  • Research
  • Featured Topics
  • Academic Units
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Faculty & Research→
Publications
Publications
  • April 2014
  • Case
  • HBS Case Collection

Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for Mobility

By: Karim R. Lakhani, Marco Iansiti and Noah Fisher
  • Format:Print
  • | Language:English
  • | Pages:22
ShareBar

Abstract

Mark Fields, Ford Motor Company's COO, had to ensure the company's current business model of building cars and trucks remained strong, while concurrently navigating the company into the rapidly expanding industry of personal mobility. Personal mobility required new technologies and business models that were untraditional at Ford, and Fields had to evaluate the traditional business model colliding with the new business model.
To direct these new technologies and business models, Ford released its "Blueprint for Mobility," which established near-, mid- and long-term goals to make mobility accessible and affordable to all.
The case focuses on the launch of three mobility experiments (car sharing, parking, and on-demand ride sharing), and asks students to determine how Fields should balance these types of experiments with the company's traditional operations. Further, was Ford doing enough in the mobility space, and if so, was it moving fast enough? What new sources of revenue could Ford derive from mobility solutions?

Keywords

Automobiles; Automobile Manufacturing; Ford Motor Company; Mark Fields; Blueprint For Mobility; Dearborn; Michigan; Car Sharing; Parking; On-demand Ride Sharing; Strategy; Business Model; Auto Industry; Michigan; United States

Citation

Lakhani, Karim R., Marco Iansiti, and Noah Fisher. "Ford Motor Company: Blueprint for Mobility." Harvard Business School Case 614-018, April 2014.
  • Educators
  • Purchase

About The Authors

Karim R. Lakhani

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

Marco Iansiti

Technology and Operations Management
→More Publications

More from the Authors

    • June 2022
    • Management Science

    Conservatism Gets Funded? A Field Experiment on the Role of Negative Information in Novel Project Evaluation

    By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani
    • May 2022
    • Faculty Research

    AWS and Amazon SageMaker (C): The Commercialization of Machine Learning Services

    By: Karim R. Lakhani, Shane Greenstein and Kerry Herman
    • May 2022
    • Faculty Research

    AWS and Amazon SageMaker (B): The Commercialization of Machine Learning Services

    By: Karim R. Lakhani, Shane Greenstein and Kerry Herman
More from the Authors
  • Conservatism Gets Funded? A Field Experiment on the Role of Negative Information in Novel Project Evaluation By: Jacqueline N. Lane, Misha Teplitskiy, Gary Gray, Hardeep Ranu, Michael Menietti, Eva C. Guinan and Karim R. Lakhani
  • AWS and Amazon SageMaker (C): The Commercialization of Machine Learning Services By: Karim R. Lakhani, Shane Greenstein and Kerry Herman
  • AWS and Amazon SageMaker (B): The Commercialization of Machine Learning Services By: Karim R. Lakhani, Shane Greenstein and Kerry Herman
ǁ
Campus Map
Harvard Business School
Soldiers Field
Boston, MA 02163
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Accessibility
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College