Republic of the Philippines

University of San Carlos

P. del Rosario Street, Cebu City, Philippines 6000

CAT 500
Group 3
9:00 10:30 MW

Nissan Motor Company

Submitted by:
Jozette V. Torino
Jasmine A. Sapanta

Submitted to:
Ms. Karl Mitzi Faith O. Dalman

October 10, 2016

1

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TOPIC

PAGE NO/S.

I. BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE COMPANY

3-4

II. TELECOMMUNICATION

5-6

III. ELECTRONIC OR MOBILE COMMERCE

7-8

IV. DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

9 - 10

V. KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

11

BACKGROUND INFORMATION OF THE COMPANY

Nissan Motor Company usually shortened to Nissan, is a

Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama,
Japan. Since 1999, Nissan has been part of the RenaultNissan Alliance, a partnership
between Nissan and French automaker Renault. As of 2013, Renault holds a 43.4%
voting stake in Nissan, while Nissan holds a 15% non-voting stake in Renault. Carlos

Ghosn serves as CEO of both companies.

Nissan Motor sells its cars under the Nissan, Infiniti, and Datsun brands with in-house

performance tuning products labelled Nismo.

Nissan was the sixth largest automaker in the world behind Toyota, General
Motors, Volkswagen Group, Hyundai Motor Group, and Ford in 2013. Taken together,
the RenaultNissan Alliance would be the worlds fourth largest automaker. Nissan is the

leading Japanese brand in China, Russia and Mexico.

Nissan continues its quest to optimize product development and deliver highly innovative
technology. Today, in various countries and regions around the world, we enjoy a stellar
reputation for creating truly innovative vehicles and service programs.

Nissan is committed to meeting its corporate targets. High standards of transparency

must be maintained between Nissans management and its employees, and between
Nissan and society. They set clear goals and act together to achieve them. They
accurately report their progress. When confronted with difficulties, they actively
communicate their approach to solving those problems, both internally and externally.

Management transparency helps Nissan to develop its full potential.

VISION:
NISSAN: Enriching peoples lives

MISSION:
Nissan provides unique and innovative automotive products and services that deliver
superior measurable values to all stakeholders in alliance with Renault.

Principle of Nissan: Nissan shall consistently treat customers, employees, shareholders,

suppliers, and communities with honesty, integrity, fairness, and respect. The following
standards apply to all employees in Nissan group companies. Each member of the

Company is charged with the responsibility to uphold and extend this code of conduct.
Global Code of Conduct:
1.) Comply with all laws and rules.
2.) Avoid conflicts of interest.
3.) Preserve company assets.
4.) Be impartial and fair.
5.) Be transparent and accountable.
6.) Value diversity and provide equal opportunity.
7.) Be environmentally responsible.
8.) Be active; report violations.

TELECOMMUNICATION

Easy Voice System

Nissan Motor Co., Ltd. introduced the Easy Voice system in Japan in 2002. This
system lets employees convey opinions and requests freely to the company. This
increases their internal, self-correcting capabilities. Anybody can report suspected
compliance violations to the Compliance division through the dedicated Easy Voice post
box. The Compliance division replies to the report within one month by proposing
corrective actions. A similar system has been introduced at each division of the Nissan
Group in Japan.

Nissan Management Way

This approach streamlines their decision-making process and maximizes the quality of
their management. The Nissan Management Way includes several key activities that
promote creativity and effectiveness. One of them is cross-functional teamwork that cuts
across corporate functions, regions and in-house organizational structures. They believe
that innovative ideas and success are not created in isolation, but rather through crossfunctional activities that bring together a diverse mix of experience and expertise. This
often leads to confrontation of opinions, but they believe that healthy confrontation
strengthens the competitiveness of the company. They become stronger by learning
from each other and by striving to overcome these differences of opinion. This is called
stretch and it helps them achieve higher targets. It is progress without compromise.
Meeting goals boosts confidence, which in turn enhances performance and makes it
possible to meet even more demanding goals. The Nissan Management Way will evolve
along with the business activities it governs. In 2004, details of the approach were
clarified in the Nissan Management Way Values Reference Manual, which was
distributed to all department and section managers around the world. Through those
managers, the Nissan Management Way will be communicated to all employees
worldwide.

Management Survey
Nissan management and employees must understand each other in order to improve the
quality of management and communication. Nissan conducts a periodic Global
Management Survey in order to assess the opinions of employees regarding the
5

direction taken by Nissan and its management. In addition, forums are held regularly to
allow for interactive communications and direct dialogues between employees and
management.

Disseminate information efficiently

Nissan spreads their information effectively by making sure that every information given
is accurate. They have an area in their website wherein information about the company
is given. And also their recent news and updates of products.

ELECTRONIC OR MOBILE COMMERCE

Nissan uses e-commerce tracking whenever a visitor submits a request for a test drive
or a brochure. They treat each request as if a car were sold, and record details such as

the model, colour, transmission type, and location of the vehicles people inquire after.
Why they opt to use e-commerce tracking?
They wanted to be able to measure more information about each inquiry within their
Google Analytics reports. By implementing e-commerce tracking they are now able to
pass additional information to their Google Analytics account, such as the category,
colour, and model of car the visitor was interested in. Nissan's Global Marketing Strategy
Division then analyses this information to understand which vehicles are in hot demand
in each market; it then feeds those insights to their manufacturing plants across the
globe to ensure that there is enough supply to satisfy demand.

Nissans Global Division uses Google Analytics features to decentralize access to their
different market operations, allowing each country manager to log into Google Analytics
and quickly assess the popularity of different models for their market. Nissan employed
a Google Analytics Certified Partner in Japan, Ayudante, to help set up their account
profiles and custom reports that could then be accessed by each of the country

managers.
Nissans Global Marketing Strategy division says there are 3 key benefits they gain from
Google Analytics as a whole:
1.) It is easy to assess product popularity globally and by market. The user experience is
seamless and there was no complex setup necessary.
2.) Custom reports allow you to easily view complex information in one view. It
dramatically reduces the time to summarize multiple reports, document it, and share it
within the organization.
3.) Google Analytics gives them access to timely information, which allows for better
decision making.

They have their own website which a customer can order whatever specific product he
needs. Their website has all the lists of their product which is very accessible. Also, they
have their own-made products which can enhance their driving experience and be more
comfortable in driving their Nissan cars.

Nissan Connect
Nissan Connect combines navigation, security, entertainment and ways to stay in touch
in a single dash-mounted system designed to reduce distractions. It helps make every
drive effortless, points you where you need to go, and keeps you connected the whole
way there. And now, you can access the things you love on your Iphone hands-free and
seamlessly with available Apple Carplay. It uses your vehicles display screen to keep
you in touch with the outside world from inside your vehicle.

Nissan Connect: Security and Convenience

You can get help when you need it most with emergency response services, manage
your vehicle with remove access features, and stay on top of maintenance with vehicle
health reports and service reminders.

Nissan Connect: Entertainment and Information

You can listen to any genre of music you like using Nissan Connect, not just music but
also you can watch movies. Along with Bluetooth streaming audio, Pandora and
iHeartRadio.

Nissan Connect: Navigation

When equipped with navigation, Nissan Connect can help you find local hotspots using
Google, guide you to your destination with built-in maps, and help you move through the
city with ease.

Nissan Connect: Communication

With apps like Facebook and Twitter, plus advanced voice recognition technology that
lets you send a text or make a call without picking up your phone, keeping up with your
connections has never been so easy.

DECISION MAKING AND PROBLEM SOLVING

Risk Management
Risks are an inherent part of their business. Nissan defines a risk as an event or a
situation that might prevent them from achieving their objectives. In the course of their
business activities they try to identify potential risks, evaluate those risks, and identify
concrete actions that will minimize the impact of the risk or the probability of the risk
occurring. Nissan is also committed to transparency in the way they handle risks. They
are careful to avoid becoming risk averse; they try to manage risks instead of avoiding
them. In 2004, the Risk Management Team in their Treasury Department identified and
prioritized risks based on their potential impact, their likelihood of occurrence and their
level of control. In cooperation with each function, for high priority risks, teams were
established, leaders appointed and countermeasures applied for all risks that required
action. From 2005 onwards, Nissan will extend the scope of its risk monitoring system in
order to include more strategy or business-process related risks, in addition to the
hazard risks on which they currently focus. While each function and department is in
charge of managing and reporting its own risks, Nissans Executive Committee will
directly supervise those risks deemed to be critical at the corporate level.

Fire Prevention Activities

Preventing fires at their plants is one of the important administration tasks associated
with risk management. Important measures such as the enforcement of fire prevention
rules and the practice of fire extinguishing training and monitoring are being carried out.

Organizational Culture
The paradigm of the delayed decision-making process and the informal meetings in
order to achieve consensus as well as aligning the decision making process must have
caused tensions with the Ghosn arrival. However when he assembled the CFTs, he
restructured the organization by flattening the decision making process. Within the
organizational restructuring Ghosn implemented the matrix structure, which required
change in the leadership styles within Nissan, as well as change in the working process.
Five factories were closed and 21,000 jobs within management, manufacturing and
dealer net were reduced in the process. As a gaijin Ghosn had to prove to the media, the
investors and the stakeholders that his NRP requires the Nissan employees' full
9

cooperation and trust. The performance based incentive 6 system in terms of cash and
stock options was unknown in the Japanese culture before. Also the seniority reward
system had been removed and replaced with KPI (key performance indicators). This
caused insecurity within the workers and lack of cooperation, especially among the older
managers who probably had expected their rightful rewards. There must have been
strong resistance within the different parts of the organization due to Ghosn "carrot and
the stick" way to put things in perspective. By dissolving unprofitable production and
demanding responsibility from the managers he showed determination and also concern
about the Nissan organizational culture. In the process he enlisted the organizational
parts on his side by letting the managers to be involved in the restructuring as well.
Ghosn successfully executed the NRP as the case describes, Nissan had the best
financial performance in history. He also managed to reduce the purchasing costs by
20%, the supplier base and the keiretsu influence.

National Culture
Although the managers had control over the operations, the team-members were
hindered of contributing in the decision-making, hence the slow development process.
The fear of "loosing face and failure" disrupted the value chain at Nissan and when
Ghosn came on board, he had to make some restructuring changes and to adjust the
power distance. Japan is known for high employment security country and employees t
ake pride in their work. However, Ghosn faced a challenge discovering that every team
believed that their department is not responsible for Nissan problems and

therefore

unaware of the fact that the company is close to bankruptcy. The formal and

informal

decision making was not efficient at Nissan as the managers did not follow-up on

their

orders. There was too much focus on the functional structure and cost per unit. Instead
the managers should have focused on the customer satisfaction and meeting the
investors' demands for improving the earnings and the stock value. Ghosn listed five
urgent problems that Nissan was facing and despite the cultural differences he believed
that diversity was a strength rather than weakness. Despite the major cultural
differences between Ghosn and the organization it worked well in the end due to Ghosn
leadership skills of letting the employees to contribute to the changes by involving them I
n the decision management - the initiation process and the implementation phase.

10

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Cross Functional Teams

At any given point in time, there are about ten so-called cross-functional teams that
tackle unique or highly important challenges within the company. Two new crossfunctional teams were formed in fiscal years 2003 and 2004. One is working to increase
diversity in the company, and the other is assessing processes that could be used to
save time throughout the company. The first team contributed directly to the
establishment of the Diversity Development Office in 2004.

Delegation of Authority
Additionally, Nissan uses Delegation of Authority a clarification of principles,
procedures and rules in decision-making processes with all employees in order to
improve the effectiveness and speed of management. This also ensures that corporate
policies are being followed.

Gathering essential information

Nissan Motor Company uses their information efficiently to create a better decision for
their company in the future. They use a lot of information gathering sources like the
Google Analytics to know more about their customer needs and specifications. It is
basically gathering the necessary information first and finally creating a better decision to

apply subsequently.
Culture is not a hindrance to understanding
Nissan Motor Company is a worldwide business organization. It has a lot of employees
which comes from various countries. The company consists of different high
management from different places. It asks for suggestions from their employees for
the upgrades and better products to be generated in the future. They are considerate
with their suggestions and judge it according to its outcome.

11