Daily reporter Zhang Bei, intern Li Yamei, edited Duan Siyao
Picture source: Vision China
According to Kyodo News, Nissan is newly appointed CEO Makoto Uchida (Makoto Uchida) took office on December 1. At the press conference at the Yokohama headquarters, Makoto Uchida promised to re-establish a vibrant alliance with Renault, end the pursuit of short-term profits, and follow the three core values of "respect, transparency and trust" in the process of saving Nissan. .
Although Makoto Uchida promised to strengthen the alliance with its largest shareholder Renault, he denied the possibility of a merger between the two companies. Makoto Uchida mentioned: "The alliance with Renault is an important competitive advantage for Nissan. We hope to promote further cooperation while maintaining the independence of the company." In addition, Makoto Uchida also proposed that the former CEO Carlos Ghosn ( Carlos Ghosn) developed a mid-term business plan to maintain operational transparency.
As Nissan’s third CEO this year, Makoto Uchida has taken on a heavy burden. Among them, cleaning up the company’s internal bad habits and maintaining friendly relations with partners are the most important things that cannot be ignored at present. task. Can the former solid alliance relationship be revived, and where will Makoto Uchida lead Nissan?
refused to "sell one's life"
Renault-Nissan Alliance was once considered the most successful auto enterprise alliance in the history of the automotive industry. The glory that lasted for 20 years came to an abrupt end in November 2018. Ghosn not only promoted the establishment of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, but also included Mitsubishi, forming the world's largest automobile production alliance-the "Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance." Later, Ghosn was arrested on suspicion of financial misconduct, which severely hit the tripartite partnership, and adverse reactions such as declining profits and sluggish performance of the alliance followed.
Public data shows that the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance's car sales in the first half of 2019 dropped sharply. From January to June this year, 5.214 million new cars were sold, a decrease of 5.9% over the same period last year. In terms of the financial report for the first half of 2019, Nissan's net profit fell by 73.5% year-on-year; Renault Group's net profit fell by 48.6%. After the league lost its global leadership, the relationship between the pair of former close friends became increasingly tense.
After the cooperation was hit hard, Renault renewed its merger proposal. At the beginning of this year, it was reported that the French government had asked Renault and Nissan to merge to gain greater control, but it was subsequently denied by French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire. Renault also proposed to establish a new joint venture holding company with Nissan, but it was ruthlessly rejected by Nissan.
Nissan rejected Renault's merger proposal several times in order to maintain independence. Renault holds 43.4% of Nissan's shares, but Nissan only owns 15% of Renault's non-voting shares. The two sides are in an unequal position. Some analysts believe that Nissan hopes to reduce Renault's influence on its management and re-examine the alliance to make its partnership more fair.
Uchida Makoto said that he will increase sales and profits by "deepening and strengthening" the current alliance. This shows that Nissan will still maintain a tripartite partnership, but may not further establish a capital partnership with Renault.
In March of this year, Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi jointly established a new alliance operating committee to promote the operation and cooperation between the three car companies. According to the latest news from Reuters, the new alliance operating committee has appointed a new alliance secretary on December 4, that is, Hadi Zablit, the senior vice president in charge of alliance business development. He will focus on Improve alliance profits and efficiency.
In addition, there is news that Nissan, Renault, and Mitsubishi have agreed to establish a new company to jointly develop next-generation automotive technologies. The engineers of the three automakers will focus on researching the new company’s artificial intelligence and other key technologies, and its scale of operations and other details will be announced at the end of January 2020.
Nissan’s internal "fire fighting"
In addition to strengthening the alliance, Nissan’s internal changesReform is also crucial to its revival. Faced with the most chaotic situation in history, the first target of Nissan's drastic reforms is the management. From Ghosn, Nissan Hiroshi to Uchida Makoto, Nissan has great hopes for this ultimate successor and expects him to lead Nissan back to the top.
In addition to the appointment of Makoto Uchida as Nissan’s CEO, Nissan also appointed Ashwani Gupta, the current chief operating officer of Mitsubishi Motors, as the company’s chief operating officer, and Jun Seki, Nissan’s senior vice president. ) Has also been appointed as deputy chief operating officer and needs to report to Gupta. The above appointment will take effect before January 1, 2020. Nissan's expert management team believes that the establishment of the "troika structure" is to prevent leaders from being as dominant as Ghosn.
At this point, Nissan has formed a new management team headed by Makoto Uchida. The task is to pull Nissan out of the slump of profit, including rebuilding the alliance relationship with Renault, and solving the "mess" left by Ghosn.
After taking office, Makoto Uchida vowed to ensure the transparency of operations, restore Nissan's damaged business and win back the confidence of the public. He plans to implement Nissan's revival through strategy update, cost reduction, and business restructuring.
Nissan's second-quarter financial report for 2019 announced in November showed that global car sales fell by 7.5% to 1.27 million units, and the company's operating profit was 30 billion yen (approximately US$275 million), a plunge of about 70.4% year-on-year. Faced with such a bleak revenue report, Nissan lowered its operating profit forecast for the full year of fiscal 2019 to 150 billion yen (approximately US$1.39 billion), reaching its lowest level in 11 years.
Not only that, but Makoto Uchida also stated that the company will review Ghosn’s mid-term business plan from 2017 to 2022. According to Ghosn’s expansion policy, Nissan’s 2022 sales target was initially set at 16.5 trillion yen (approximately US$148.89 billion). But in May of this year, Nissan has lowered the target to 14.5 trillion yen (about 130.84 billion US dollars). Perhaps, after review, Nissan will update its mid-term revenue target again.
In addition to strategic innovation, Nissan is also embarking on a global slimming process, including measures such as layoffs and reduction of production capacity. According to foreign media reports, Nissan may cut off its auto brand Datsun, and abandon some unprofitable products and production lines globally in order to increase profits by reducing the scale. Nissan announced as early as July this year that it would lay off 12,500 employees worldwide by 2022, reducing its global production capacity by 10%.
It can be seen that the scope of Nissan's revival plan is huge, and the burden on the shoulders of the new CEO Uchida Makoto is indeed heavy.
