Nissan’s new CEO, Ivan Espinosa, will accelerate decision-making and reduce vehicle development times to drive the company’s turnaround.
He wants to transform Nissan’s corporate culture, promote teamwork, and pursue strategic alliances for technology development.
Nissan Motor Company is also going through huge leadership transition with Ivan Espinosa stepping in as CEO from April 1 to succeed Makoto Uchida. Over the past two decades plus in Nissan’s history, Espinosa has decades of experience and a very clear vision for Nissan’s future. His biggest concern is accelerating decision-making and creating a culture of teamwork, where the point of emphasis of pressure will be team effort to success.
One of the greatest priorities that Espinosa refuses to compromise on is shortening the time it takes to introduce new cars. At present, an entire new car takes about 55 months from design to showroom. He is going to trim this to 37 months for initial-generation cars and even 30 months for subsequent models. This will make Nissan nimbler and quicker to respond to changing consumer tastes and new technology.
Espinosa’s trip to the office was when there was a breakdown of the merger negotiations with Honda. The two were not able to see eye to eye regarding corporate autonomy and the negotiations thus broke down because part of the discord involved Honda daydreaming of making Nissan a subsidiary. This is just one example of Nissan’s age-old struggle of managing alliance strategy and autonomy.
Slipping sales in key U.S. and Chinese markets have also impacted the firm. In response, Nissan has proposed an ambitious restructuring plan that includes assuming more than 20% of global capacity and eliminating 9,000 jobs. The moves are intended to rationalize operations and re-balance for profitability.
Part of its efforts to go further into the humongous market, Nissan announced in its official statement that it will be rolling out new and updated models in the near term. Its North American third-generation Leaf EV and Rogue plug-in hybrid crossover are examples of its innovation and eco-friendliness initiatives.
Espinosa also feels that non-automotive alliances are required to drive smart and autonomous vehicle technology. His leadership will be watched closely as he leads Nissan to become more competitive and aggressive in the global automobile market.
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