JLR people still talk about the day, seven years ago, when Ralf Speth returned to Solihull as the new CEO of Jaguar and Land Rover.
It was a couple of years after Tata had bought the twin iconic British marques from Ford. Speth, who spent most of his early career at BMW, had already done a couple of tough stints in Britain: the first as part of the team struggling to build a viable business at Rover, the second as director of production, quality and product planning inside Ford’s overloaded Premier Automotive Group, which contained not only Jaguar and Land Rover but also the Aston Martin, Volvo and Lincoln marques.
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Those present at the fateful 150-strong JLR managers’ meeting remember their surprise that Speth, having had two tough British jobs (interspersed by four much calmer years in Germany), should want to come back for more. But they were glad he did. “It was a great day,” says one witness. “Ralf held up the Land Rover watch he still wore and told us how proud he was to be back. He wanted the new group to be successful, because Britain needed a car industry. Let’s speed up, he said, and it went down a storm.”
This must have been one of Speth’s few rabble-rousing performances. He’s not a natural bravura man, preferring soft-voiced and rather intense discussion among smaller groups, whom he expects to be as well informed as he is. His authority inside JLR is great, partly because of his reputation for asking the question you hoped he wouldn’t, but mostly because of the huge progress he has brought in just seven years. Here’s a short, extraordinary summary…
Since 2010, JLR’s vehicle output has quadrupled to 604,000, a tally that company insiders wouldn’t even have whispered a short time ago. A new record is expected for 2017 and nowadays even JLR’s famously cautious CEO doesn’t demur if you suggest a million might be in prospect under the right post-Brexit conditions. “Maybe after we’ve set up our new factory in Slovakia, we might get close to that,” he allows.
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...and you don't think JLR's
All very well. But Land Rover
That is a very dangerous step away from their core value, akin to Porsche only making SUVs (no matter how profitable they are).
Trouble lies ahead.
eseaton wrote:
And LR does not need to make a product suitable for Longleat or the "proper farmer" - Toyota and Nissan do a wonderful job of that, and should be allowed to. JLR has evolved with the times, and has the potential, quite like Porsche as quoted by you, to become one of the most profitable manufacturers of premium vehicles. Why bother with a £20k "truck" when you can sell 600,000 premium SUVs, saloons and sports cars?
Congratulations Mr Speth