Can ‘foreign’ car giants revive British industry? – Telegraph.co.uk

However, appearances can be deceiving. In the darkened conference rooms behind
the glitzy stands in Geneva, where decision-makers debated the future of the
sector, Britain’s influence was alive and well.

In the absence of a domestic-owned manufacturer, British workers have climbed
their way to the upper echelons of foreign companies instead. The boards of
BMW, Nissan and Ford all contain executives from Britain. Overseas companies
may be driving the future of the industry, but British executives are
helping to steer.

The success of Rolls-Royce and Mini over the last decade has been hailed as an
example of how efficient German management can succeed where sub-standard
British leaders have failed.

Yet, the man who has overseen the brands in the last few years is from
Shropshire, Ian Robertson. He is the sales and marketing director at BMW,
and is the only non-German man on the company’s board.

He joined Rover as a graduate trainee in 1979, after mulling a career in the
oil industry despite a passion for cars. Robertson worked his way up the
ranks at Rover to become purchasing director, before the company and its
brands were acquired by BMW in 1994.

The Brit then travelled through managing director roles at Land Rover, BMW
South Africa and Rolls-Royce, before he was appointed to the BMW board in
2008.

Today, he is an unofficial global ambassador for British automotive
manufacturing and will provide the keynote speech at the Society of Motor
Manufacturing and Trading (SMMT) conference this summer. When the chief
executive of BMW, Norbert Reithofer, announced last year with David Cameron
that the company was investing £500m to build next-generation Minis in the
UK, Robertson was sat next to him.

The expansion of the Mini plant is Oxford is just part of BMW’s plans for its
British brands. Rolls-Royce’s base in Goodwood is also growing, and the
company has plans to introduce a new model alongside the Phantom and Ghost.

“You have to be careful with Rolls-Royce,” Robertson says. “You
could lose some of the rarity. We once did a survey and found there were 45
cars within 1km of the Berkeley Square dealer.”

Robertson claims the revival of Mini since 2001 occurred because BMW has been “authentic
to its history”, despite launching radical new takes on the car such as
the four-door Countryman. “A lot of people’s memories of Mini were not
the car, but the moments,” he adds.

BMW’s expansion in the UK is being followed by other car makers. Last year,
foreign automotive manufacturers announced £4bn of investment into the UK
and have set the country on the road towards record levels of car production.

In Geneva, Nissan announced it would pump another £125m into its Sunderland
plant, creating 2,000 jobs. The investment, supported by a £9.3m grant from
the Government, will allow a new compact model called the Invitation to be
built in Sunderland.

The Japanese company arrived in Sunderland in 1986 and now designs, develops,
and builds in the country. The UK has become its European home, but also a
source of global executives for Nissan.

Sir Ian Gibson, the chairman of Trinity Mirror and Morrisons, grew from being
one of Nissan’s first UK employees to the company’s first non-Japanese board
member.

Today, the senior team of Nissan is more populated with British executives
than ever. The head of manufacturing in Europe is Trevor Mann, while Andy
Palmer is executive vice-president for global products and Colin Dodge is on
the board as boss of Africa, Middle East, India and Europe and head of
global performance.

“One of the friendliest governments to this company is the UK,” said
Dodge in Geneva. “There is 25 years of history.”

The Government has supported Nissan because it is a vital source of jobs in
the North East of England – employing almost 6,000 people directly – and has
opened the door to further foreign investment by changing the image of car
manufacturing in Britain.

When Nissan arrived in the 1980s, manufacturing was riddled with poor labour
relations, high costs, and inefficient workforces. However, the practises
celebrated by Nissan, such as kaizen, which means continuous improvement,
have turned UK factories into the most efficient in the world.

The baton taken on by Nissan in the 1980s for UK car manufacturing, is today
with Jaguar Land Rover.

The premium car maker is the closest company the UK has to a flagcarrier. It
is owned by India’s Tata and led by German Ralf Speth. However, the models
that are driving its modern-day success, such as the Range Rover Evoque,
have been completely imagined, designed and built in Britain. The company
employs 21,000 staff in the UK, by far the most in the industry, and plans
to create more through a new engine plant in Wolverhampton and the expansion
of its Halewood factory in Merseyside.

Under Mr Speth, the chief executive, are chief financial officer Ken Gregor,
director of sales operations Phil Popham, as well as some of the most
revered designers and engineers in the world, such as Mike Cross and Ian
Callum of Jaguar.

“We really make a difference,” said Speth of the company’s impact on
British manufacturing. The company has hired 4,000 staff in the last 18
months as part of its expansion.

“If you add the indirect numbers to the direct numbers then you will get
an even higher and impressive number. With the Evoque we have placed with
the suppliers orders for billions. We are also repatriating at the moment
the first companies [suppliers] in the UK. So you can see the power there is
and the benefit there is for the region and the nation.”

Jaguar and Land Rover have been nurturing talent in the industry for years.
Lewis Booth controlled the companies while head of Ford Europe and is now
finance director of Ford alongside chief executive Alan Mulally. Also, the
current chief executive of Ford Europe, Stephen Odell, used to lead Jaguar’s
sales and marketing in North American, while Allan Rushforth was sales
director of Land Rover in 1990s before moving to Audi and then to Hyundai,
where he leads the South Korean company’s European business despite it
having no manufacturing facilities in the UK.

“The global industry knows that the UK is a great source of automotive
talent,” says Paul Everitt, the chief executive of the SMMT. “We
have a real enthusiasm and feel for the industry. The intense competition in
the UK market, willingness to innovate and determination to succeed all play
their part in giving UK executives the skills they need at the highest
levels.

“In a truly global industry those with a UK background are able to adapt
and to help shape teams drawn from a wide range of cultures and countries.”

In turn, the global industry has adapted and helped those UK leaders so they
can now comment on and advise their home government from a much wider
context.

“We would like to see more stimulation into the economy for growth,”
says Robertson at BMW. “The industrial strategy has been fragmented.
The consistency of approach could have been better. Manufacturing policy is
not a one-term issue, in Germany policy has been in place for years. There
needs to be consistent support for apprentices, research and development,
and from banking.”

“In Germany there are many local banks. These local banks with local
approaches have helped the mittelstand.”

However, while the rise of British executives it is impressive, they are
unable to provide support alongside the government to the one company that
needs it most.

Nick Reilly, the former president of General Motors Europe, retired at the
turn of the year meaning the biggest car company in the world has no British
influence at the top. This gap could prove to have more consequences for
British manufacturing than the success of the likes of Robertson, Rushforth,
and Booth. GM is reviewing the future of its loss-making European arm and
could close its Ellesmere Port or Luton Vauxhall plants.

Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, flew out to the US earlier this month for
urgent talks with GM management. But around the GM boardroom table in
Detroit, there is no cheerleader for Britain.