Blog of RENAULT NISSAN Alliance

The Renault-Nissan Alliance is considered as a one of the rare examples of a successful relationship between two global automotive companies.

Yet journalists and financial analysts often underline the untapped potential of the Renault-Nissan collaboration. They are right; we could do better. As a Renault General Manager having worked for five years at Nissan headquarters in Japan, I am convinced that the potential is limitless.

So what can we do?  At Renault and Nissan, we use Cross Functional Teams (CFT) to challenge the organization and find new ways to be more efficient and find new synergies.

THE ROLE OF CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

CFTs were introduced at Nissan in 1999 by Carlos Ghosn, and were a key element in the definition of the Nissan Revival Plan, as well as its execution. In less than two years, Nissan was turned into a record profit making machine with one of the highest operating margins in the industry.

CFTs were introduced at Renault in 2005, and today they are a constant challenge to the established way we work and are organized, relentlessly tracking potential savings and increased revenues.  Pilots and crew members are chosen from across functions and departments and they constantly question the way things are managed and operated in the organization, pursuing breakthroughs well beyond existing limits. We have no sacred cows, but we also respect the work of the functions, and never impose our views on the operations. Having worked in Japan, I request the CFTs to practice “Nemawashi”, or pre-decision rounds, a very Japanese notion, to ensure proposals are understood and accepted by all parties before presentation to our COO.  

BRINGING TOGETHER RENAULT AND NISSAN’S CROSS FUNCTIONAL TEAMS

On 31 August, I gathered Renault and Nissan CFT pilots to investigate potential common initiatives outside those synergies already established within the Alliance.

One of the questions we were asked to tackle by our executives was this: raw material prices are increasing with some scenarios predicting a rise of up to $1000  per car by  2015. Renault and Nissan have a common interest to find new ways of reducing this bill.

For three months, our CFTs worked remotely on how to tackle the issue. At the end of the process, we had listed more than 15 initiatives to reduce raw material costs by several hundred million euros by 2015, benefiting both companies.

In the future, new opportunities in areas such as dealer network optimization, after-sales business, investments, and more…

CFTs have a role to play in each company, but also at the Alliance level. Renault and Nissan are working together, on a daily basis, to increase their existing synergies and to find new fields of cooperation. We will continue investigating, through our CFTs and with every one at Renault and Nissan, to tap this potential.