Context & Challenge. Ford’s B2B commercial vehicles and services division, Ford Pro, a $67 billion revenue business, needed a new platform to establish its leadership and reposition itself as a one-of-a-kind, “end-to-end solutions provider” to enterprise C-suite customers and millions of small and medium-sized businesses, mostly in skilled trades, government services and utilities — from FedEx and Walmart to mom-and-pop HVAC, electricians and plumber services.  

Our Approach. Engaging with hundreds of customers, dealers and the Ford Pro team, we recognized that business owners and workers in the skilled trades and related services felt underrepresented, faced chronic perception issues and serious challenges with talent pipeline and innovation. We developed the “Essential Economy” as a thought-leadership and business-growth brand platform to champion the people, businesses and systems that build, move, power and maintain the physical world. We’ve positioned Ford as leading a national coalition on this issue and created an annual national convening — Accelerate — and a year-round program modeled on efforts like the Nation’s Report Card.

Results. Ford Pro has grown tremendously through this platform — reaching $67 billion and 30% growth QoQ in software subscriptions, with customers and public and private partners including BlackRock, Google and others. This summer Ford Pro announced the National Skilled Trades Coalition with customers and an equally strong coalition of public and private partners and is deploying hundreds of millions of dollars to transform America’s skilled trades talent pipeline.