Volkswagen success: thanks to its strategy

At a time when Volkswagen is battling dozens of lawsuits, I'm talking about what made the company great. Bad timing perhaps, but why stop learning from the company's strength?

Volkswagen owes its success to: its STRATEGY.

And the strategy? Cars share components.

Karan Girotra and Serguei Netessine writing in HBR say, "Although the strategy does not protect the company from general demand swings, it reduces demand variability for individual components, because shared components make it easy for VW to switch production at its plants from one model to another whenever the demand for car model shifts."