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Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 17:57:26 GMT
From: th <someguynospamwhere.se>
Subject: Re: Saab to be sold?  ...GM Denies!


Martin Rich wrote: > On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 08:04:40 -0500, "Tex" <texnospamm101.org> wrote: > > > >>Would a sale of Saab be good? It would certainly lose the marketing power >>of GM. > > > Is the marketing power that big a deal? In Europe Saab is marketed > quite separately from Vauxhall/Opel and has separate dealer networks; > I assumed the same was true elsewhere? The real economies of scale - > and the reason that a completely independent Saab would probably not > be viable - are to do with design and manufacturing. > In Sweden the Saab/Opel dealer network is not separated. Most Saab dealers also sell Opel, although in some cases they have Opel cars in the basement/ground floor and Saab cars on the first floor. > >>There'd be no guarantee that Trollhattan would remain open even with >>a new buyer. Does Saab need its own manufacturing plant to _be_ Saab? > The question would be how to obtain all parts that are now "GM common" parts (brakes, the new 6 cyl engine, etc.) > > Carlos Ghosn (mentioned elsewhere in the thread) was nicknamed 'Le > Cost Cutter' and he certainly made it clear that he was prepared to > move production away from Nissan's Sunderland plant, which has a > tremendous reputation for productivity, if they didn't make a strong > enough case for a new model to be built there. > > Nissan/Renault in some combination would be a good fit with Saab in > terms of product range, but don't expect a particularly easy-going > management style if they take over. Incidentally GM and Renault > already have a joint venture for delivery vans (Vauxhall Vivaro = > Renault Trafic = Nissan Primastar all made in the same factory in > Luton) so there is some precendent for sharing engineering knowledge, > as would be necessary if Renault find themselves making cars based on > GM's Vectra Volvo already tried cooperating with Renault with little success. Saab, being another Swedish company, could possibly have the same problems in terms of culture, management style etc. Saab/GM and Volvo/Ford cooperation is probably simpler although there is a difference in management levels as Swedish engineers are much more independent in their work. Basically a US engineer does what the boss tells him to do even if he knows that the boss is wrong. A Swedish engineer at the lowest level typically makes makes the same kind of decisions as the lowest level US manager and is more prone to put in question the decisions of his nearest manager. Thus a Swedish department manager typically discusses best with a US division manager as they are on the same level from a responsibility point of view. The Japanese have a similar way of working as the Swedes. Decisions are more taken on consensus basis rather than one manager deciding in most aspects (as is the typical French way of working). So why not, a Saab/Nissan cooperation could be successful. Saab has already used a Nissan automatic transmission in the 9-5 and why not use more Japanese parts. These are anyway known to have much better quality than US parts, just look at the semiconductor market: it was not until the Japanese manufacturers entered the market that quality and reliability of complex semiconductor products like memories really improved. The US manufacturers were not fast enough in improving their quality and quickly lost most of the market. Generally Japanese cars are considered to be quite reliable, this can also be seen in annual statistics from mandatory tests. From several people in this group it seems that GM reputation is quite bad in terms of quality (I've only noticed it on the really poor fast-rusting brakes of the 9-5). Thus, Saab being sold to Nissan should improve the car quality compared to a GM ownership. -- th

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