Reinventing your business: And after the war?
SAAB Aircraft in 1940
What do we produce then? The Swedish aircraft company, Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (SAAB), was worried about the future towards the end of World War II. If they had previously had a good demand for their products due to the war, in peacetime they could no longer expect a large purchase of fighter aircraft. Reinventing your business was the task of the hour.
The management brainstormed: from kitchens to caravans, everything was considered. Finally, project no. 92001 won out: car manufacturing.
Unconventional eccentrics
The first model of the new car manufacturer alone stood out for its unusual design. Since its engineers had aviation backgrounds, it was basically the first car designed according to aerodynamic principles. The Saab 92 (“Ursaab”), then already with independent suspension, was powered by a two-stroke engine.
SAAB 92 (“Ursaab”) in 1947
The management brainstormed: from kitchens to caravans, everything was considered. Finally, project no. 92001 won out: car manufacturing.
Problem: Positioning
The author with his SAAB 99 EMS
Yet Saabs – until GM’s takeover – always had a very idiosyncratic design – people either loved them or found them ugly. But no one was indifferent. However, the number of enthusiasts was never large enough to achieve a viable market share in the upper middle class.
Saab was not premium enough to charge premium prices and on the other hand, the Swedes did not have the unit numbers and consequently dealer networks that allowed synergies and savings to be competitive. In this highly competitive market segment, this means death. In Saab’s case, it was more of a painful demise. With a bit of strategic vision, this should have been obvious to benevolent “saviors” like GM, Cadillac, Koenigsegg and Chinese investors.
While the founding fathers had acted with foresight in anticipation of the impending market conditions at the end of the war, Saab’s management in the 1970s failed to address their positioning problem after the market had become saturated.
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