Nissan vs Brexit

Change management

Brexit has a lot of impact on many company in United Kingdom and worldwide’s company that doing a business in United Kingdom. Brexit happened because UK is leaving EU and it is a scary decision for a lot of company that relate to UK or based in UK. This decision from UK’s government is affecting UK immediately. The most important component that make UK faced the difficult situation like this is the free trade in goods and services between UK and EU. Moreover, the future trade restrictions in EU is not guarantee because of the increasing rate in term of import price and inflation. Brexit make the Pound currency weaker which is not a sustainable way for big company to choose to invest in UK(Thomas-Bryant, 2019).

One of the big company that get effected by Brexit is Nissan. Nissan is the automobiles and parts’s company that is actually based in Japan. The company first established in Yokohama city in 1933.until now, the company has present their products and services in more than hundred markets around the world. Nissan is mainly famous for manufacture the car. However, the company run their business by both producing and selling the car(NISSAN MOTOR Co., 2019).

How does Brexit affect Nissan? 

As a result, Nissan has announce that they will no longer produce their SUV’s model which is X-trail in UK anymore. Instead of making the X-trail in UK they will move the manufacture back to Japan. Nissan has their factory in Sunderland including 16,000 workers. This decision is came from the EU division that seen a lot of problem after the existence of Brexit. The reason why they decide to stop making the X-trail’s new model is that the future of UK relationship with EU is not sustain and most importantly not helping the company at all in term of their future plan(Sommerlad, 2019). Not only Nissan that affect by Brexit but also Ford, Honda, Jaguar, and Land rover.(Stubley, 2019). The car manufacture company need to reduce their upfront investment cost because Brexit make a lot of their process even more difficult and expensive. Nissan stop making X-trail because of the emission’s regulation that going to cost their capital investment more and the number of sell has reduced. The size and engine of the X-trail is the problem for Nissan during faced Brexit. This is not an easy decision for Nissan because most of their selling unit is came from EU. Nissan change their focus into other model such as Juke and Qashqai which is a crossover car.

Action plan

I will use Lewin’s change management model to solve Nissan’s situation.

Lewin’s change management model, it has three stages including unfreeze, change, and refreeze. First, Unfreeze, Nissan need to accept the situation that they need to change something and create a plan to unsure that everybody understand what we going to change and employees need to support it. The organization need everyone to be involve in this stage. They need to communicate more often to make sure that everybody in the organization know about the change that going to happen.

Second, Change, this is where the plan become real, this is the hardest step for organization because they need to adapt themselves into the change. At this stage, the organization need to make sure that their plan is working and need to let every employees know about what they are going to get about this changes and reason why the organization need to changes their plan.Third, Refreeze, all the change and plan that the company has, need to be a sustainable ways and apply this change into a system or culture in the organization(Levasseur, 2001).

I will acknowledge all the employees in the company to know that from now on our plan is to focusing on new market and i believe this idea will help the company during Brexit a lot in term of saving money and investment. My idea is that Nissan choose keep producing Nissan Micra which is a small model that Nissan is represent in the EU market.

Brexit makes everything change especially with money. The reason why i suggest this ideal is because of Micra, The model alone has a small engine and size which is more easy to produce and help Nissan reducing the emission that the company has to pay instead of making a bigger model such as X-trail’s model. Nissan should focus more on Micra because now small car has shown a huge impact in the EU market. For two straight year, the best selling car models in EU are a small size car such as Volk Golf and Polo, Renault Clio, and Ford Fiesta(Bekker, 2019).

The interior option for Micra need to be carefully selected so the price of the car is controllable and attract more customer which they can see a huge different of the price between Micra and other brands. This way is more easy for customer to decide which brand or model are they going to buy. 

The outcome from learning change management

I reflect myself to be more open minded. I start to care more about small detail and issue of my team members. It prepare me to be the best leader in the future. In company, it is very important to know how to manage yourself and team even we are facing problem or not. Change management shows me that team is very important. The quality and productivity of the work always come when the company is well management. Change management shows me how to lead people. Not only order them the work but also listen to them because listen to other is one of a very basic element that every leader should have. However, if i want to be a leader, listen to team member is not enough. Either ways it remind me of what do i have in myself that people are willing to listen. It automatically tell me that to be a leader i can not stop learning. I need to keep learning and gain more experience because change management is not about team and communication. Chang management has a lot more than that. If i want to be better, i need to improve whatever weakness that i have to be perfect as much as i could to gain my credibility. Finally, i need to motivate my team and also myself to achieve the goal that i set. 

References

Bekker, H. (2019).  2017 (Full Year) Europe: Top-Selling Car Models – Car Sales Statistics. [online] Car Sales Statistics. Available at: https://www.best-selling-cars.com/europe/2017-full-year-europe-top-selling-car-models/ [Accessed 2 Dec. 2019].

Levasseur, R. (2001). People Skills: Change Management Tools—Lewin’s Change Model.  Interfaces, 31(4), pp.71-73.

NISSAN MOTOR Co., L. (2019).  NISSAN | CORPORATE INFORMATION | Outline of Company TOP. [online] Nissan-global.com. Available at: https://www.nissan-global.com/EN/COMPANY/PROFILE/ [Accessed 1 Dec. 2019].

Sommerlad, J. (2019).  These are the companies cutting UK jobs and leaving the UK ahead of Brexit. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/brexit-companies-leaving-uk-list-job-cuts-eu-no-deal-customs-union-a8792296.html [Accessed 26 Feb. 2019].

Stubley, P. (2019).  Nissan tells Sunderland workers new X-Trail model will be made in Japan as boss says ‘Brexit uncertainty not helping’. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/nissan-brexit-sunderland-japan-job-cuts-uk-eu-trade-exports-no-deal-gianluca-de-ficchy-a8760756.html [Accessed 3 Feb. 2019].

Thomas-Bryant, K. (2019).  How will Brexit affect businesses? 12 things you need to know | Sage Advice United Kingdom. [online] Sage Advice United Kingdom. Available at: https://www.sage.com/en-gb/blog/how-will-brexit-affect-businesses/#what-is-Brexit-anchor-link [Accessed 30 Sep. 2019].