A blank sheet of paper. No taboo. No sacred cow. These are some of the elements for economic revival put forward Thursday by Carlos Ghosn, the Lebanese engineer who brought Japanese car giant Nissan back from the dead.
Speaking at the 38th Congress of the International Advertising Association (IAA), Ghosn declined to pass along any advice to Lebanon, a country in which he sees beauty and sorrow.
“If I am reluctant to give advice in Japan, I am less inclined to do it in Lebanon,” Ghosn said. “All I can say (is that) life is fair, if you have the motivation.”
Nor was Ghosn enthusiastic about diagnosing Lebanon’s economic woes.
“Undoubtedly Lebanon is passing through a hard time, but nothing is impossible,” he said. “It is better to start when the times are tough so that we are not surprised by what may come later.”
In 1999 Ghosn’s drive led him to create a three-year economic revival plan to turn the “cooked” Nissan into something manageable. His experience ringed loud among Lebanese businessmen who packed the congress to hear of Ghosn’s quick fix and who crossed their fingers in hopes that it would apply to Lebanon’s case.
“What did you do to us?” was Ghosn’s first question to the advertising firm the minute he stepped into Nissan and saw the company’s disastrous ad campaigns.
“First you have to discover what you did to yourself,” came the reply from advertising agency TBWA’s international president Jean-Marie Dru, who was present Thursday at the IAA meeting.
Dru and Ghosn both believe in the power of the brand.
“If, at the marketing level, we want to create change, brands have a key role to play,” said Dru.
“They are not simply a tool to support client’s sales, they are also symbol of emerging values that companies stand for.”
Nissan is striving to impart words like “bold” and “thoughtful” to its cars, through new creative products.
“Our job is to help our clients to take the lead for the consumers by changing the rules, by believing in the power of ideas.”
Ghosn’s main idea in 1999 was to wipe clean Nissan’s slate before undertaking a brand-building campaign.
“The solution to Nissan’s problems was inside the company,” he recounted. “The main (idea) we would have for the revival of the company would be a rebuilt motivation of Nissan employees and partners.”
Through a cost-cutting, brand-building, technology-based campaign, Nissan, a company juggling an $18 billion debt, shed around half of its staff, restructured its production line, eliminated all its bad assets and focused on technological investments.
“But the plan did not aim at re-establishing the profitability of Nissan by shrinking the company, but rather by preparing it for a significant redeployment and development,” Ghosn said.
Ghosn’s revival plan did not hold water among skeptical businessmen.
“As you know credibility has two legs, performance and transparency,” he said. “Performance, we had none to show at the time, so we were determined to be highly transparent.”
But to Ghosn, transparency is not merely showing your books, but that “there is no difference between what you think, what you say and what you do.”
One year later, Ghosn delivered more than even he had expected. The company’s debt, which was supposed to decrease by half, was slashed to a quarter, although investments increased.
“Bringing the debt down is not so much about financial constraints,” Ghosn said. “It’s mainly management, particularly for a struggling company with a high level of debt for so many years.”
But numbers do not matter much to Ghosn at the end of
the day. “The most important indicators are not numbers,” he said. “It is a very simple element: Our people are proud again of Nissan.”
Nearly two years after the economic revival plan churned up an all-time high of $3.9 billion in profits in 2001, Nissan is again forging ahead with a simple plan.
The new the Nissan 180 plan is aiming for zero debt and a $60 billion profit by 2004, and Ghosn is going about executing this plan, just as he did when he took over in 1999.
“Through the economic revival plan, our people transformed a struggling company into a good company. Through Nissan 180, we will transform a good company into a great company,” he said.
He acknowledged that his revival plan was no miracle, saying: “Make sure you are focused on your own people. Bring them motivation and sense of ownership, then you can do your miracle.”
Ghosn’s miracle has allowed him to build new factories in Brazil and even in Indonesia, but will he ever inaugurate one in Lebanon? “You can never say never, but at the moment it is not in sight.”

‘One bullet in our gun’

Carlos Ghosn, speaking on the Nissan recovery project

“The challenge was unquestionably significant. And there was no question about the imperious necessity to tackle it successfully and quickly if we wanted Nissan to survive.
“We looked lucidly and objectively at our weaknesses so as not to justify any excuses but to identify clear opportunities for progress for the future. We did it in a constructive way but without any sense of complacency. We were convinced from the beginning that the answers to Nissan’s problems were inside of the company and that the main answer that we would have for the revival of the company would be a rebuilt motivation of Nissan … We started with a clean sheet of paper and we rejected any taboo, any preconceived idea accepted as a sacred cow. It was an organized collective effort. Hundreds of people participated in it. We made it clear that we had only one bullet in our gun … Communication is going to be a crucial tool in your  management. Communication with your employees, with your customers, with your shareholders, and with your partners. No doubt about it. But also communication with society at large because you first buy from the people you like.
“Through the Nissan recovery project, our people transformed a struggling company into a good  company.”

‘Globalization means being open’ 

Jean-Marie Dru, speaking on brands and globalization

“Some believe that globalization is at the heart of what is going wrong today. Obviously, I don’t agree. When globalization means being open to the world and trade, it becomes a source of inspiration, it helps to see, to react, to accept … and to refuse.
“And this has been the case in Mediterranean countries for the last 5,000 years. I will obviously not ask you, here in Beirut, what Rome would have been without Greece, Europe without the new world, and Picasso without African art.
“Anti-globalization campaigns are indirect attacks on brands, brands are indeed at the heart of globalization. If, at the marketing level, we want to create change, brands have a key role to play. They are not simply a tool to support  our client’s sales. They are also the symbol of emerging values that companies stand for. Today, people are striving to feel connected, especially because they are faced with critical uncertainties.
“The need to belong to communities, to clans, to circles, to these places where the same values and points of view are shared is a need which is growing more important. In this world which is increasingly uncertain, getting together in groups is a way of reassuring one another.”

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