CORPORATIONS: The Problems of Westinghouse

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Top company management is now alive to its problems. Price and Mark Cresap, his executive vice president and heir apparent, are vigorously counterattacking. To recapture falling sales, the company is hiring topnotch salesmen, boosting its sales organization by 20%. Promised Price: "We're definitely going to step up our merchandising activities at the local level and we'll spend whatever is necessary." In an attempt to get back into the jet field, it has spent $20 million on jet-engine facilities and is testing a new medium-power jet engine, hopes to get Navy orders for it.

The company hired Assistant Chief Engineer Donald Burnham away from Oldsmobile and put him in charge of cutting costs. It is setting up a wholly new laboratory, staffing it with 40 engineers and technicians who will devote full time to shaving costs. Said Cresap: "Each division manager has been given a profit bogey to meet, along with a free hand to cut costs and expenses wherever necessary to produce that profit. The requirement is strongly upon us to get our expense house in order."