Last week, Toyota announced it will close the plant of New United Motor Manufacturing Incorporated (Nummi), its one-time joint venture with GM to make cars in California. (GM had pulled out of the JV in July.) It was third-page news in the financial section, but the passing of an era nonetheless. Nummi represented the first footstep of Toyota in US production, taken in the early 1980s, deep in the last recession. The plant never made money, but allowed Toyota to learn a lot — less so GM.
Benjamin Gomes-Casseres is an expert in alliance strategy and the Peter A. Petri Professor of Business and Society at Brandeis University. He has been studying, teaching, and consulting on the strategy of business combinations for thirty years, and is the author of three books including Remix Strategy: The Three Laws of Business Combinations (HBR Press, 2015). To learn more about the ideas and tools he has developed, visit remixstrategy.com.
