Maybe the successful global partner, Nissan, should be figuring the way forward for the group, rather than the partially government owned, trapped in the sickly European market with too high a cost structure Renault?
Chrysler ended American Motors with a merger in the 1980s and had some of its best years subsequently when the AMC talent that joined in the merger rose to high positions in Chrysler. Maybe Nissan can do the same.
sorry,about 'Hostage Justice'.
Last Saturday,
Report about Japanese judicial system by news show of Japan's TBS was impressive.
former Japanese judge said : "Judges are obedient to prosecutors basically". "Many one side information from prosecutors through mainstream media makes dominant social atmosphere that many suspects should be guilty and Judges are difficult to ignore it".
" 'Hostage Justice' is crafty strategy that Japanese prosecutors spent several decades to have built.it will be very difficult to correct it".
former prosecutors of Tokyo district said : "Recently, Judges are not always obedient to prosecutors".
that is to say,
for a long time,Japanese prosecutors had been able to control Judges and trials.
Working for a large auto-supplier that has had its fair share of large mergers and acquisitions, Mr Ghosn's warning regarding leadership ring very true. When companies merge or form alliances in name only, but continue to allow the redundancies and waste below the surface to fester, it's a recipe for disaster. Do the hard work up front, make the tough decisions and combine systems, reduce wasteful overlap, and focus on efficiencies and synergies, or else the company is destined to remain a bloated mess of politics and silos. I've seen it happen here, where no one will make the decisions to do this, and after many years it is still a drag on our company and resources.
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Before anyone had the vision to understand the potential of electric vehicles, Ghosn was pushing Nissan to start developing them. I read somewhere that there was an internal rebellion but he was proven right. As a result of Ghosn's vision, Nissan is far better placed for the future than if Ghosn did not have the vision at the time.
Leadership, as Ghosn asserted in his video, means that sometimes you need to make the unpopular and uncomfortable decisions. With a new consensus based system in place, who will exercise this leadership? On the other hand, if every entity, i.e. Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi, have an equal vote in the event of a deadlock, does Renault think that the Japanese will vote separately? They would have already discussed their strategy in advance and despite Renault's 43% stake, they will find themselves on the opposite end of what Nissan (and Mitsubishi) want.
The fact of the matter remains that had Renault not bailed Nissan out in 1999, there would be no Nissan to talk about today. The rest are mere details.
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Possibly the Japanese made a grave error in ending Ghosn leadership, or autocratic ways, however which way one may look at it. You can't take away the fact that Ghosn has been highly successful in expanding world wide auto sales. And when alliances are formed between two or more entities like this one, someone, repeat someone, must have the ultimate or primary final say. It is easy to rub corporate managers ego the wrong way, and this is what has happened. All things considered Nissan might have been more prudent by taking Ghosn aside and worked out a few changes needed to control Ghosn ego as well as his autocratic ways. The operational changes that will be forthcoming will slow the company down, and is easy to predict the alliance is going to suffer, as well as deminish their market presence.
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maybe two french engineers are the problem. What have the French ever engineered in the last hundred years?
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@Bob:
1. Airbus, or at least many parts of it. (The planes are assembled in Tolouse.)
2. Ada, the computer programming language that for a long time ran many of the west's defence systems.
3. Nuclear reactors.
And, reverting to cars, don't forget the Citroen Traction Avant, the first mass-production front wheel drive car, from the 1930s.
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@Tawny Frogmouth
Absolutely true. To this you can add high speed rail development, pioneering pharmaceuticals, and aerospace. Right now the British have had to turn to the French to design and build their next major nuclear generating station. The ignorance of middle America about achievements overseas is astounding.
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