Can subscription sales save us from layoffs?

I’ve been looking for financial numbers for subscription sales revenue and expense, not finding it. We used to break our “Ford Next” but apparently not any more (probably because they cost $3 billion more than their revenue).

The only active subscription services I’m aware of as of today are Blue Cruise (which Marketing is funding, thanks Jim and Elena!) and “canopy,” which is supposed to be a partnership with ADT security. Apparently, canopy cannot make their product work as advertised (intelligent people knew it wouldn’t). What they claimed it would do, when announced in January 2022:

“Offerings will integrate the Safe by ADT platform to provide professional monitoring and help businesses protect valuable work equipment in vehicles and individual owners strengthen security inside and outside vehicles
Canopy will build and sell its first product and subscription service early next year to protect cargo areas of high-volume commercial trucks and vans in the U.S. and U.K.
Canopy was incubated by Ford’s New Business Platform team and plans to begin integrating its security solution with on-board vehicle cameras in Ford vehicles next year”

Here we are, October 2023, and Canopy does none of that. ADT is not involved. It only does pickup truck beds. Where is the accountability for this failure?

Do we hold FLV responsible? Or CM? Or Farley? For WASTING BILLIONS THAT COULD HAVE BEEN IN OUR BONUS CALCULATIONS?

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Post ID: @1ebg+1p93zGuL

You forgot to mention that 'annual' revenue of a subscription will repeat annually unlike the one time sale of a vehicle. Thus, you are missing the advantage that the subscription/services business model has.

@1ebg your numbers are off, Canopy only works in pickup truck beds, not Transits or other vans, change 4 million to less than 700,000. Ford will never recoup the losses incurred by Ford Next.

Please name one of “The next batch of data/services from Model e” that “will only grow the user base which leads to increased revenue.”

I’ll wait. Forever. Because you can’t.

Do the math. Ford sells about 4 million vehicles annually. If every vehicle buyer signed up for canopy, the total annual revenue would be only $756 million. Since the subscription take rate is less than 5%, potential annual revenue is likely less than $30 million. Ford Next has already wasted over $10 BILLION. There is no subscription service that will ever recoup all that lost capital. Stern needs to shut this down and layoff all the Ford Next losers.

Finance person

I’m hoping Stern takes a hard look at these projects and the people responsible for producing nothing of value. FLV rushed the canopy thing to pump the stock price in January 2022. He is departed, but Moran is still collecting a million dollar paycheck for his compete face plant on this. The supposed partnership with ADT security is smoke and mirrors, the security subscription service just does not work as advertised, and nobody is buying it.

who is the lieing troll? is it j flake? a hall? instead of exposing the failures of the so-called subscription services, you should be holding the like of f louis-victor, c moran and all involved accountable for their miserable and epic fails and waste of obscene amounts of capital. ford has become a laughing stock of every tech/ marketing/ business professional. too many fakes have been hired that produce zero results and farley tops the list. to he-l with ford, glad to be done, also terminate c price and r mcmanus, 2 of the biggest fakes.

@1qam+1p93zGuL

I couldn't care less what you believe! The subscription numbers are a shell game. Marketing is funding free trials and the company is using that for their subscription numbers. Sadly, the usage data for the free trials is very low as well.

Blue Cruise is probably the most hyped subscription we have, but unfortunately the renewal rate on it is abysmal.

Post ID: @1smh+1p93zGuL

Are you saying that Ford leadership is presenting us false data and false projections for our profitability with subscriptions at Town Halls and on atFord reports?

Sorry I trust what Ford officials say on record rather than a negative nobody on an internet forum.

Ford’s total revenue from any subscriptions or services is smaller than a rounding error on revenue from the F150. There is nothing Peter Stern can do to improve this.

Ignore the ignorant troll that is @ues+1p93zGuL.

I work in the subscription space. What we are seeing is that 95% of customers do not want another monthly bill on top of their monthly payment. What this means is that you can get a 20-25% take rate by rolling the subscription into the price of the vehicle. Otherwise you get less than 5%.

The problem? The old Ford issue of departments not wanting to play nice with each other. The best way to offer this is to bundle subscription services together, roll them into the price of the vehicle, and let the buyer buy the bundles at the time of the sale. None of the subscription based feature teams want to share the revenue! They're all convinced that their feature is the hot new must have that customers will pay hand over fist for. Spoiler: It's not.

Couple that with almost every subscription feature being late (and not available for customers to buy at vehicle sale). And what you end up with is old company politics.

Even Blue Cruise isn't being adopted beyond free trials or the initial subscription period (3 years they pay for when they buy the vehicle).

So unless a 5% take rate across subscription services will generate billions (it won't), then they are not going to save us.

Yes. This has been reviewed in numerous Town Halls by Ford leadership. The Ford subscriptions are showing tremendous growth. The next batch of data/services from Model e will only grow the user base which leads to increased revenue.

Nope.

No fool just raise the price of the car.

No.

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Can subscription sales save us from layoffs?

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