Nissan Motor Company Started An Automobile Industry Marketing Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Nissan Motor Company started an automobile industry over 70 years ago. Nissan is the third largest Japanese car maker and one of the top 10 in the world. The company, including its associated brands, designs, produces and sells more than 3.7 million passenger cars and commercial vehicles in more than 190 countries. The company is engaged in manufacture and sale of passenger automobiles, as well as the supply of automobile parts. Nissan was acquired by Renault group in 1999 when it ran into financial trouble. Having recovered quickly under the leadership of Carlos Ghosn, Nissan is now stronger than its mother company. "Nissan is one of the most popular and successful automobile brands in the Middle East boasting of a strong line-up ranging from popular passenger cars to powerful 4x4 series and commercial vehicles" (Nissan in the Middle East, page 1). Nissan Motor Company. Ltd. first established its Middle East headquarters in Dubai on June, 1994; thus, it became the first Japanese car manufacturer to accomplish this deed. Today, Nissan and its worldwide companies form alliances that maintain its domestic and international consumers. Along with producing cars, pickups and sports utility vehicles, the company also has an interest in heavier vehicles and equipment such as vans, trucks, buses, components, aerospace, industrial machinery and marine equipment.

Background and History

A company called Jidosha-Seizo Kabushiki-Kaisha (which means "Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd." in English) was established in 1933, in Japan. Just after one year it changed its name to Nissan. Nissan grew steadily after the Second World War. It expanded its business globally and became very successful in North America. Just like other Japanese manufacturers Nissan was high in quality, reliable and efficient.

Around 1991, Nissan started to operate rapidly establishing itself by the production of four of the top ten cars in the world. Nissan's management throughout 1990s was recognized for its display in the market due to its growth rather than its profitability or long term success. Nissan became a more established company due to its engineering and technology, plant productivity along with the quality management. Nissan's designs are created according to the requirements of customers, who tend to buy good quality cars rather than stylish, innovative cars.

Nissan required a strategic partner in order to expand its ideas. Thus, in March 1999 Nissan President and Chief Executive Officer Yoshikazu Hanawa found such an alliance opportunity with Renault. It assumed a 36.8% stake in Nissan allowing it to invest $5.4 billion and retain its investment grade status. Hanawa was also able to get Renault's top management to agree to three important principles during negotiations.

Nissan would maintain its company name

The Nissan CEO would continue to be selected by the Nissan Board of Directors

Nissan would take the principal responsibility of implementing a revival plan

Fortunately Renault was also looking for a partner, one that would reduce its dependence on the European market and enhance its global position. Renault wanted a partner that was savvy and established in the North American and Asian markets. Thus on March 27th, 1999, Nissan and France's Renault SA signed an agreement concerning a comprehensive global alliance aimed at achieving profitable growth for both companies. They were confident as the merge of Daimler and Chrysler was proven to be effective on a global scale. By 2008, the net sales of the company reached 9,428,292 million yen. Today Nissan Motor runs with over 200,000 employees worldwide.

Nissan has always been known for innovative, cutting-edge technologies, while maintaining the calm subdued body shapes. The interior of cars follows ergonomics rules giving the operator comfort and handling safety license. The corporation is dedicated to building highly appealing cars that customers can take delight in driving. The attractive bodyline and the luxury within the interior of the car, is what Nissan believes is, one of the major attributes that appeal to their consumers; causing their customers to pay specific attention to these certain characteristics.

The Automotive Industry

The Automotive Industry is a business of manufacturing and selling vehicles. It has encouraged the expansion of road systems and allowing consumers to commute long distances. It has also allowed other industrial product to contribute as well, such as steel. Thus it is the key determinant for economic growth. The automotive industry evolved from the innovations in fuels, vehicle components; manufacturing practices, societal infrastructures, and of course changes in markets. In the early 1600s, the first vehicle sail mounted carriages were driven by anything but animals or humans. However, the development of the engine was marked as one of the main starting point for the automobile industry. In 1876, after the first engine, the 4-stroke internal combustion gasoline-fueled engine was invented. From then the invention and establishment of the first motor vehicles and automotive firms in America and Europe arose. Advancements, such as the steering wheel and accelerator made the vehicles easier to use, and thus contributed to the development of the automotive industry. Over time, car designs transformed from the carriage appearance to a more motorized appearance. In 1896, Henry Ford built the first car and as a result he invented the assembly line which transformed the industry. The transformation allowed him to mass produce these assembly lines so that consumers can afford them. Globalization of the automotive industry accelerated exponentially after the 1980's. This was due to the construction of important overseas facilities and mergers alongside with improved production techniques adopted by the Japanese in the 1970's. By 2005, the industry's global output touched 64.6 million vehicles. The auto market today is one of the largest segments in world trade. Today the annual automotive exports have reached a level of $600 billion which accounts for 10% of the worlds export. It is estimated that the car industry will continue to prosper to increasing trends as national economies and population increases worldwide.

Objectives

The mission statement of Nissan is to provide unique and innovative automotive products and services that deliver superior measureable values to all its stakeholders in alliance with Renault. (www.nissan-global.com)

Nissan's main definition of competition is to achieve sustainable, profitable growth. At the same time, Nissan desires to make enduring contributions to social development as a valued and trusted member of society.

Nissan believes that their own success depends upon their corporate vision of "enriching people's lives", they always think about what they can do to realize people's enriching life, and make social contributions continuously in the three main areas of "supporting education", "taking care of environment", and "providing humanitarian relief when necessary".

Nissan vision is "Enriching people's lives"

Nissan focuses on maintaining and implementing better quality standards for their customers.

Social contribution activities at Nissan:

Fostering a spirit of voluntary participation among employees

(Support individual employees and encourage as many of our people as possible to get involved in the spirit of corporate citizenship)

Making the best use of corporate strengths and qualities

Finance - aims to go beyond this by making full use of the resources built up through our business activities, such as our expertise and our facilities, to carry out sustainable activities.

Cooperating with specialized NPOs and NGOs

Nissan continually looks for ways to develop highly professional programs to work with nonprofit and nongovernmental organizations in order to make its social contributions all the more effective and productive.

(www.nissan-global.com)

Marketing Strategy

Nissan approaches to marketing by adopting globalization strategies in order to be within the global automobile market to become Japan's number one automaker. Nissan's business strategies have molded over the years to assign its global development and drive through all the heat in mist of challenges it may face in its global endeavor.

Nissan has been aggressively pursuing different marketing strategies to effectively implement them in their business strategy. Nissan's successes are largely due to its ability to identify growth opportunities and develop marketing strategies to obtain them. Firstly, they have achieved greater market share by marketing their cars as fuel-efficient, well-built alternatives to the gas-guzzling, problem-prone American cars. Secondly, Nissan was also able to identify new opportunities for market development and spent time on product development to penetrate into these markets. Nissan's product development led to the creation of the 'Infiniti' brand that offered a unique line up of cars, a unique brand philosophy, and services that target the luxury and youth market. Nissan decided to create a new superior brand because they had a reputation of being a company that only offered cost-effective and fuel efficient compact cars. Hence they decided to launch a new brand name 'Infiniti' in 1989 with heavy emphasis towards quality customer service. Their focus is on major metropolitan cities worldwide in order to maximize their revenue. And thirdly, Nissan focuses mainly on the youth market by advertising through youth-oriented media (Aerosmith, MTV, late-night television), creating a funky website to highlight their brand philosophy, and sponsoring multimedia games. Seeing Nissan's success with its marketing strategies, it also encouraged Toyota and Honda to introduce youth oriented cars.

Marketing Strategy for the US

Nissan and other Japanese carmakers have marketed their cars to Americans as being fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly, and having better build quality than American cars. Additionally, Nissan market each of their cars differently by dividing its products for different target markets. For example, the upcoming 2011 Maxima and Titan vehicles powered by a clean-diesel engine are being segmented geographically mainly to appeal the United States market. Due to the global warming laws and greenhouse gas emissions have been increasing in the United States. There are still several states where diesel cars are prohibited, but Nissan has been the first company, who has demonstrated that its cars can still fit into the legal requirements for cleaner burning fuel cars as their engines burn about 50% more efficiently than gas powered engines.

Order Winner & Order Qualifier

The terms "order winners" and "order qualifiers" were coined by Terry Hill, professor at the London Business School. He argued that the marketplace could be divided into two groups: order qualifiers and order winners. An order qualifier is a characteristic of a product or service that is required in order for the product/service to even be considered by a customer. An order winner is a characteristic that will win the bid or customer's purchase. Therefore, firms must provide the qualifiers in order to get into or stay in a market. To provide qualifiers, they need only to be as good as their competitors. Failure to do so may result in lost sales. However, to provide order winners, firms must be better than their competitors. It is important to note that order qualifiers are not less important than order winners; they are just different. (Reference for Business)

Order winners for Nissan include: High Quality and Low Cost - Nissan delivers cars at an affordable price with exceptional timing…

Order qualifiers for Nissan include: producing cars meeting diverse customer preferences with excellent quality

Operations Strategy: Identification and description of key business processes and business policies

Nissan strategy

Global competition in the auto industry continues to grow ever fiercer. An 'excellent company' of the 21st century must fulfill its responsibilities as a citizen of the global community, while maintaining the highest levels of business performance.

Everyone at Nissan today are enthusiastic to meet the challenges as they see opportunities to apply their knowledge and experience for the purpose of enriching people's lives. Nissan's vision is to enrich people's lives through attractive, high-value products and technologies. The important elements of this mission are designs born of passion and creativity, advanced and user-friendly technologies and telematics, and an emphasis on driving pleasure brought about by a well-balanced combination of all these important elements. Nissan's unique, innovative cars are developed through active collaboration among the company's design, engineering, production and other divisions. Immerse attention is paid to interior finish and other details. All these assure customers' confidence in Nissan quality as they enjoy personal mobility.

.

Nissan always strives toward their goal of lasting profitable growth as their first priority. Their alliance with Renault will provide supplementary support for their continued advance forward. Through this powerful business tie-up, the two partners share one another's strengths and effectively use them to produce more attractive products.

Nissan has continued to offer new and unique concepts about how humans can interact with cars. Their designs allow customers to intuitively recognize the characteristics of cars and the values they offer. Nissan's IT is transforming the car from a tool for transportation into a total space in which drivers are connected to outside information.

Nissan's first concern has been in the satisfaction of their customers with their proficient services, technological innovation, environmental protection and increased safety, while growing their profitability at the top level of their industry. Nissan has made a major impact within the automobiles considering their cars being environment friendly, from development to recycling.

Nissan company tends to have future goals in making effort for developing cleaner emissions and higher fuel efficiency (reduced CO2 emission), while increasing new vehicles that could run on clean energy. Nissan's viable new technologies, such as the ultra-low emission vehicle (U-LEV) technology, are functional to many of its products at reasonably priced. They have made the "Nissan green program" with a slogan - Nissan as an environment - friendly company. This motto is demonstrated to decrease the environment pollution along with promoting sustainable resources. Additionally, Nissan is keen in developing new ways to protect the ecology and have a compatible economical growth. As well, Nissan is promoting the development of safety technology with a goal of reducing fatal and severe injury accidents by half through their "Real World Safety" policy. The ultimate goal of the company of building the Nissan brand into one that is powerful and highly positioned in the global markets.

Nissan products

Nissans core business depends on the manufacturing of automotive products but it also has diversified its operations into industrial machinery and marine equipment.

Their product range caters for different consumer needs, and includes:

Micra (small, economical town car)

Almera, Tino (medium sized multi passenger vehicle: MPV)

Primera (saloon, hatchback and estate)

X-TRAIL, Terrano, Patrol GR (4 X 4 vehicles)

A complete range of Light Commercial Vehicles (LCV) - Kubistar, Primastar, Interstar, Terrano Van, Cabstar and Pickup.

Today, Nissan has major production and office facilities in Japan, the United States, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, South Africa, China, the Southeast Asian countries, as well as in other regions of the world. Nissan produces around 2.8 million units of cars globally. Nissan is always keen upon looking at ways and ideas to help in the renewal of their current models in order to give its customers the most innovative product along with enriching their satisfaction. As far as customers go, Nissan is a multinational company and offers attractive products and quality service worldwide through around 7,900 distributors in 190 countries, always placing importance on their customer's needs and their communication

Operations Management

Nissan has maintained its focus on releasing the highest quality vehicles in the most efficient way possible. They have also decided to import many of their production techniques from the US. But unlike the US systems, they had more worker task flexibility and fewer restrictions on job classifications. They also worked to improve synchronicity between suppliers and plants through the idea of Douki-Seisan, which is Japanese for Synchronized Production, as well as delivered vehicles more frequently than its competitors in the US. Nissan made a commitment to reduce order-to-delivery (OTD) times from 30+ days to less than 14 days by Q4 2004. Nissan's management approved the global deployment of NPW (Nissan Production Way) as a standard production system in 1984 in order to achieve their corporate objectives.

The Nissan Production Way

Nissan Production Way (NPW) has "Two Never's" that serve as the basis:

Never-ending synchronization of manufacturing with customer needs and

Never-ending quest to identify problems and put in place solution

The foundation of NPW is based on extreme cost reductions on all levels in all divisions to be implemented by numerous cross-functional teams. NPW focuses on reducing Nissan's cost-per-unit by decreasing the internal costs, eliminating unnecessary corporate functions, and avoids pressuring suppliers. Under the NPW, manufacturing processes in facilities are connected with orders from customers, ensuring efficient production and short lead-time for delivering high quality cars to customers. Another feature of the NPW is its flexible manufacturing system, which allows the production of multiple models to be produced on the same line. In a work environment designed for workers' maximum safety and efficiency, Nissan cars' high quality is maintained by enthusiastic employees and outstanding production technologies.

It is essential to have both quality of the product and its management in order to have its brand name among the world's best. During the Nissan Revival Plan, the foundations were created for the Nissan Management Way, a program to increase the quality of management and to increase decision-making speed. The program's two cornerstones were cross functional teams (CFTs) and the Value- Up program.

Cross-Functional Teams

There had to be a different management and leadership style implemented at Nissan than that of his time at Renault. Ghosn believed that execution is 95% of the job and strategy is only 5% (Thunderbird Group, 2005). He had interviewed the top executives all the way down to middle managers to determine how to streamline execution of the organizational goals and to put everyone on the same page for Nissans revival. His main part of interest in doing this in-house was to address the motivation and horizontal communication issues that he encountered throughout the organization. One of the major outcomes of such interviews led to the creation of his 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 implementation.

In two years or less, Nissan was stated as the profit making machine with one of the highest operating margins in the industry; nine CFTs, international teams bringing together people from different business areas within the company. Each CFT was under the leadership of two Executive Committee members, each headed by a "pilot," and each given a topic to handle.

The teams consisted of around ten members who were drawn from the company's middle management. Ten people could not cover broad issues in depth. To overcome this each CFT formed a set of sub teams. These sub-teams also consisted of ten members and focused on particular issues faced by the broad teams. There was one goal-to make proposals to develop Nissan's business and reduce costs. Today there are 14 CFTs, and their role continues: to challenge the company to do better by addressing strategic and structural issues, and to propose breakthrough ideas to enhance the company's operations and profitability. The CFTs are expected to develop fresh, original ideas without being bound to past work practices or habits. One CFT is specifically targeted at enhancing the quality of management- to maximize the company's target results using a minimum of management resources in the shortest possible time.

CFTs are used as influential tool for getting line managers to see beyond the functional or regional boundaries that defined within their direct responsibilities. CFTs managers helped each other by challenging their work and moreover practicing their developments. One of the regular members acted as a pilot who took the responsibility for driving the agenda and discussion. The pilot and leaders selected the other members. The pilots usually had frontline experience as managers. The CFTs remain an integral part of Nissan's management structure. Subsequently, though the teams have no decision making power, they continue to brief the CEO and have access to all company information. Since the members of the teams were often mid-level managers who rarely saw beyond their own functional responsibilities, this new coordination had high impact on participants. There have been cases in which the mid-level managers have actually enjoyed learning the business from the bird's eye perspective and felt that some changes were required for processing the changes in the market. This gave them some sense of responsibility and ownership about turning Nissan around. The CFTs also prescribed some harsh medicine in the form of plant closures and employee reductions. By working together in cross-functional teams, managers can learn how to think in new ways and challenge existing practices.

Value-Up Program

The Value-Up Program is a tool for achieving the goals of NISSAN 180, using successful implementation of developments obtained during the NRP. Like the CFTs, the Value-Up Program is cross-functional across different departments and so is designed to produce quantifiable, measurable results through the use of successful tools. A total of 300 V-Pilots-the leaders who set the issues to be resolved-and 4,000 crews have been trained, and some 1,200 Value-Up projects have been launched. Since April, 2003, this program was successfully implemented within the company.

Employee Feedback Critical

It is very important to receive feedback from both the customers as well as the employees in order to improve the current situation of the company and their needs. These efforts at increasing quality and speed during NISSAN 180 are not simply top-down directives. Both CFTs and Value-up teams make sure that their ideas combine their structures in order to manage the company itself. Nissan is also keenly interested in receiving the constructive feedback that will shape management quality. In 2002, a NISSAN 180 survey was conducted on more than 20,000 employees representing all of Nissan activities worldwide - that was fresh, original ideas without being bound to past work practices or habits. One CFT is specifically targeted at enhancing the quality of management- to maximize the company's target results using a minimum of management resources in the shortest possible time.

The NPW also makes use of the following vital elements in order to achieve its objectives

Lean Manufacturing

Just-In-Time

Kaizen

Jikoda

Kanban

Andon

Pull System

Lean Manufacturing

The Lean production has the main object for eliminating the waste in every area of production including customer relations, product design, supplier networks and factory management. Its first aim is to incorporate less human effort, less inventory, less time to develop products, and less space to become highly receptive to customer demand while producing top quality products in the most efficient and economical manner possible.

Principles of Lean Enterprise: -

Zero waiting time

Zero inventories

Scheduling - internal customer pull instead of push system

Batch to Flow - cut batch sizes

Cut actual process times

Shrinks lead times

Saves turnover expenses

Reduces set-up times

Multiplies inventory turns

Just-in-Time

Just-in-time is a manufacturing philosophy pioneered by Toyota in 1970s and has been introduced due to the method of elimination by which many of the inventory levels were decreased. With a just-in-time approach, specific vehicles and their components are produced just-in-time to meet the demand for them. Sub-assemblies move into the final assembly plant just as final assemblers are ready to work on them, components arrive just in time to be installed, and so on. The heart of JIT is Kanban, Japanese word for card. Nissan, on the other hand, have taken 'Just-in-Time' a stage further. It has formed a joint venture with Visteon to make parts on the same site as the car plant in order that components may be delivered just in time for assembly. This can actually, save the transport and storage costs- that serves as the innovative system for the car plant. Nissan's just-in-time process depends not on human frailty but on machine precision. Every vehicle is monitored automatically throughout each stage of production. A transponder attached to the chassis leg contains all of a vehicle's production data e.g. its required color, specification and trim. This triggers sensors at various points along the production line thus updating the records.

For example, the transponder sends a message to the production system at a supplying company to produce a seat in a particular color and trim, this triggers the relevant response and a seat to the required specification is produced. Further along the production line the specifically produced seat arrives to meet the vehicle to which it belongs - just in time.

Kaizen

Kaizen is the lean manufacturing term for constant quality improvement and Nissan is famously associated with is as it states 'We will not be restricted by the existing way of doing things. We will continuously look for improvements in all our procedures. 'Kaizen can be applied everywhere, any time, any place. It can involve the smallest change in everyday working practice as well as a major change in production technology. Typically these improvements are initiated by teams of employees sitting down together and sharing ideas for improvements. Any small changes were set to be maintained in order for them to work. It was important to make sure that no improvement was too small and thus, should be done correctly. It is essential to learn that Nissan has the responsible for their current way of their jobs along with tring to find better ways to change their things. Employing Kaizen means the following: -

Proactively improve production

Reduce manufacturing waste, this saving money and raw materials

Increase employee involvement and satisfaction

Increase customer satisfaction by providing cost effective products

Jikoda

Jidoka, a term used in Lean manufacturing, meaning "automation with a human touch". It is a quality control process used by Nissan which applies the following four principles: -

Detect the abnormality

Stop

Fix or correct the immediate condition

Investigate the root cause and install a countermeasure

Kanban

A Japanese term meaning, "signal"; it is one of the main tools of JIT system. It signals a cycle of replenishment for production and materials. This helps with the maintaining of the flow of material that are manufactured within the process. It is usually a printed card that contains specific information such as part name, description, quantity, etc. The card contains,

Instruction for production and conveyance

Visual control tool to check for over production and to detect irregular processing speeds

Tool to perform kaizen

Andon

It is important if the production line is stopped die to ay problems that may occur within the line. Mostly, all the employees have empowered to stop the production on finding any type of defect. This is take care by preventing any defective items from passing to the next process.

Andon electric board are highlighted in the location, where the defective parts could be located as well as being attended there.

Under a 'push' system, there is little opportunity for workers to gain wisdom because they just produce according to the instructions they are given. In contrast, a 'pull' system asks the worker to use his or her head to come up with a manufacturing process where he or she alone must decide what needs to be made.

Re-engineering

Re-engineering has been a major factor for the success of Nissan. Any Nissan model, once introduced in the market has to leave an impact at the first impression. However, if ever, once they fail to impress the market new strategy is to be selected. It would be important to re-engineer the model, i.e., completely alter the failed model using the same production facility. This method is still not being practiced at General Motors and Ford. Once a GM / Ford vehicle fails in the market, the whole manufacturing facility for manufacturing the model is scrapped and the employees are often pushed out of the company. These results in losing the knowledge gained at great cost.

Superior Technology & Quality

All Nissan production facilities are designed in a way to provide flexibility, so that all the products of Nissan could be user-friendly, witch new models or ramp-up production of existing models within a short period while ensuring the top quality traditionally associated with the Nissan brand. For the mass production usually robots are used. This allows a different choice of people or robots depending upon the profitability, the production line offer the flexibility to handle everything from low-volume to mass production. The quality control of Nissan ensures the production of correct material along with the parts is fitted being accurate and precise. This can enable a complete effort that is later combined with thousands of rigorous inspections performed by team members during the production process.

Additionally, the team members have the biggest responsible for most of the part of it. They are inspectors for their own work and that of co-workers. When a problem on any vehicle is spotted, any team member can pull a rope - called an Andon cord - strung along the assembly line to halt production. Only when the problem is resolved is the line re-started. This process involves every team member in monitoring and checking the quality of every car produced.

GM takes 27 hours for producing a vehicle while Nissan does it in 15 hours, shows the technical superiority of Nissan.

Employee Satisfaction

NISSAN has created an organizational culture that encourages employee participation, which is essential for Douki-Seisan. While, coordination helps with the manufacture with the actual customer order, therefore, it helps the synchronizing all the aspects of the operations and its material. It is quiet common to find group activities that are promoted among the shop-floor team members. The knowledge base of all the employees is used to for the improvement in the equipment reliability and productivity, thereby lowering maintenance and operating costs.

"Shop-floor management; problems are solved and improvements are made at the actual place where they arise: on the shop floor"

TPM is also practiced. Over 90% of the work is executed by robots. Loading and unloading is automated.

Two other important aspects of TPM are training and open communication between operators and engineering. Production personnel are trained to perform routine maintenance. High level of employee loyalty and commitment to quality is observed in Toyota employees.

Employee participation is ensured through

Quality Circles

Suggestion Schemes

Incentive programs

It is observed that there are more number of satisfied employees at Nissan when compared to GM and Ford.

Human Resources Strategies

Nissan has set in place a complex Human Resource program which follows the idea of kaizen in order to have continuous improvement of the employee's and workers in Nissan. This system has helped in coming up with strategies of successes and helps keep Nissan's 200,000 employees up to date.

Employee Training

If a business wants to continually improve its performance and productivity it needs to recruit the right people with the right attitude. However, it is crucial for the success of any business improvement initiative, particularly manufacturing companies to eliminate any attitude problems prior to the project. This is why it is vital to train people to work in such a hi-tech industry with such sophisticated quality systems. Nissan's human resource department invests in training schools whose primary objectives are to provide structured learning facilities to all employees, as well as acting as a catalyst in changing people's attitude towards change.

The department concentrates on five main areas:

Technical development - e.g. teaching skills relating to robotics and electrics, plus the required knowledge e.g. wiring rules/regulations.

people development - identifying employee needs and ambitions; providing courses to help personal development e.g. in team building and communication skills

understanding processes - workshops covering safety, production operations etc

computer skills and graduate training - from basic to highly technical

Trainee development - courses for graduate trainees ranging from accountancy to team building.

Ergonomics

Ergonomics is fundamentally concerned with psychological aspects of job design. This helps design a job by which it can be done the most efficient way. In other words it refers to the way human body functions.

Job rotation

Job rotation refers to the practice of transferring an employee from one work station or activity to another during the operations in order to add variety to a job it is often used in assembly line work In order to keep the workforce flexible.

Nissan's working policy

Nissan operates a policy of '1 man = 3 jobs, 3 men = 1 job'. In other words, a worker should be competent in at least three different jobs, and at least three people should be capable of doing each job. This principle ensures that each job can be covered in the case of absence.

Job enrichment

Job enrichment is the process of "improving work processes and environments so they are more satisfying for employees". It also means that jobs can be regularly rotated to prevent a worker from becoming bored in a particular role.

Many jobs are dull and unrewarding - particularly in the primary and secondary production industries. Workers can feel dissatisfied in their position due to a lack of a challenge, repetitive procedures, or an over-controlled authority structure. Job enrichment tries to eliminate these problems, and bring better performance to the workplace.

Problems and Solutions

Problem

Solution

Why

The number of car models that were profitable increased to 18 of 36 models from 4 of 43 models.

The number of profitable car models should increase more. Nissan should continue the process of increasing the number of profitable car models and should increase the number of profitable car models by at least 80%.

Nissan had been incurring losses for seven of the prior eight years before in March 1999. At that time only four of the company's 43 models turned a profit. However in 2002, the number of car models that were profitable increased to 18 of 36 models from 4 of 43 models. It was an excellent achievement for Nissan.

But we would like to recommend that Nissan should moving on in this process and in the near future the company should increase the number of profitable car models by at least 80%.

Nissan management had displayed a tendency to emphasize short term market share growth, rather than profitability or long term strategic focus.

Nissan should emphasize on long term market share rather than short term market share.

Nissan was doing the business from 1933 and the company grew steadily after the Second World War. So Nissan has been doing the business for a long time. Along with other Japanese manufacturers, Nissan was successfully competing on quality, reliability and fuel efficiency. By 1991, Nissan was operating very profitably, producing four of the ten cars in the world. The fact is that Nissan has been doing the business for a long time, therefore they should focus on their long term market share.

During the previous decade, Nissan's design had not reflected customer opinion because they assumed that most customers preferred to buy good quality cars rather than stylish, innovative cars.

Nissan should focused more on their customer needs to develop new product according to their customer's choice.

Now a day's one of the key marketing strategies is to understand or find out the needs and wants of customers. But the problem was that during the previous decade Nissans design had not reflected customer opinion because they assumed that most customers preferred to buy good quality cars rather than stylish, innovative cars. That was a wrong idea used by the Nissan's top management. On the other hand competitors had done a great job by finding out the needs and wants of customers and they made their cars according to their customers demand. So Nissan should focus on understanding their customer's needs and made their new models of car according to their customer's choice.