Big reshuffle over at GM

General Motors on Wednesday announced an extreme makeover of its sales, service and marketing organization that it said is designed to streamline the organization, "improve all of our brands and achieve strongly profitable channels at both a wholesale and retail level." The most noteworthy executive change was the announcement that GM has hired former Nissan executive Mark McNabb to head its new "premium channel."

The sales reorganization puts four new brand channels into place. They are Chevrolet, Saturn, Buick-Pontiac-GMC and Cadillac-Hummer-Saab. McNabb will lead the latter channel.

GM said McNabb will join the automaker on April 21. Previously, he was corporate vice president at Infiniti and senior vice president of sales and marketing of Nissan North America. Jim Taylor, Cadillac divisional manager, Martin Walsh, Hummer divisional manager and Steve Shannon, Saab divisional manager, will all report to McNabb.

"[McNabb's] background with Mercedes and Infiniti, in addition to Nissan, make him uniquely suited for this new position as the vice president of the premium brands," said Mark LaNeve, GM's North American vice president for vehicle sales, service and marketing.

In a statement, GM North America President Troy Clarke said the channels "will work closely with GM's global product development teams to ensure the products meet consumer needs." However, GM is not resurrecting its old divisional structure, a system that gave division heads the power to run product development.

What this means to you: Part of the idea of this sweeping change at GM is to get your feedback into the hands of channel leaders so they can respond more quickly to market demands. — Anita Lienert, Corresponden