Nissan as a corporation has over the last 14 years undergone a monumental change in almost every aspect of its business and structure. Of course, H&R has been central in the reforming of Nissan, and we will be taking a look at how it has affected the “new” Nissan.
HISTORY
Nissan emerged in the 1930’s after a series of mergings between smaller Japanese motor and car manufacturers. It produced cars, airplanes and larger military equipment for Japan during the war, but kept going on in the cold war era, gradually becoming more and more global with plants in the US and other parts of the world.
However, in the late 1990’s the company was facing severe financial difficulties, and it went into an alliance with Renault. Renaults CEO Carlos Ghosn took over as CEO for Nissan aswell, trying to rescue to company. He received a lot of criticism for firing more than 20000 workers, but inevitably saved the company from ruination.
DIVERSITY
Nissans’ core value can generally be defined as “Diversity”. Its new slogan, “Power comes from inside” oozes of it, and any official paper on the company or interview with an executive will back this up. They want to pull attention and focus towards the growing diversity in their work force, as the people have different backgrounds, nationality, lifestyle, education, behaviors and so on. The central point is that they view it as an asset. A huge Strength in their SWOT-Analysis, and they wish to utilize it to the fullest.
How? As mentioned, they’ve put an immense focus on it among their employees. As of course, the power comes from inside, and there’s nothing more “inside” than the core values of its employees.
To begin with, Nissan created two single, independent entities for improving diversity.
The Diversity Steering Committee, which is solemnly there to make and implement diversity-related decisions. The committee has 3 meetings a year with the COO and executives from every division.
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