NISSAN'S JEREMIE PAPIN: Company making progress

Jeremie Papin has spent the past year attempting to stabilize a listing ship.

Last June, he was elevated to vice chairman of North America to lead Nissan Motor Co.'s critical U.S. market — a business buffeted by sinking sales and dissatisfied dealers.

Since then, Papin has steered Nissan through a product overhaul and has led a strategic pivot away from the aggressive pursuit of market share championed by former Nissan Motor Co. Chairman Carlos Ghosn. While a formidable task in the best of market conditions, these initiatives have been orchestrated by Papin during the dual crises of a pandemic and a global microprocessor shortage, both playing havoc with vehicle production plans.

The past year has been "about changing the way we did business, further exacerbated by the pandemic and all the disruption it brought," the French native said. "It's a real opportunity to reset a lot of the ways we were doing business, including how we interact with dealers and suppliers."

Papin, 47, a former finance executive, is on a fast track at the Japanese automaker. In April, he took over as chairman of the Americas, giving him oversight of Nissan's operations across North and South America. It was a return to a management structure across the hemisphere that Nissan adopted in 2007 to increase market penetration in Latin America. That strategy was abandoned in 2014 as Nissan turned its focus to driving U.S. share. Papin is also a senior vice president.

The re-creation of the Americas region is about integrating Nissan's Latin America operations with the Mexico business. It's an opportunity to "streamline support operations" and enable faster decision-making, Papin said.

He spoke last month with Staff Reporter Urvaksh Karkaria about Nissan's business transformation plan and mending factory-dealer relations. Here are edited excerpts.

Q: What's on your to-do list in the near term?

A: The situation with supply is a challenge. We need to constantly secure the best availability of semiconductors and make the right decisions in terms of production. So far, we've done a good job at managing through the crisis — protecting the business as much as we could, prioritizing where we needed to in getting the cars to the dealers. Throughout the summer, we are going to be seeing stabilization. In terms of production, June is probably the most difficult month.

What's your management style?

I feel fortunate that we have such a strong team. We discuss objectives and resources. Their job is the execution, and I'm here to check in and support.

For communication with the dealers or communication around product, I feel as if we have very solid executives that do a terrific job at it. So this is not about me. This is about having the best people, doing the best of what's required by the business at any point in time.

How is the Nissan Next strategic plan proceeding?

There's momentum in terms of the quarter-over-quarter performance. We are managing the business to keep residual values high and seeing improvement in an indicator that is slow-moving, but important — which is the overall opinion.

We have seen a better relationship with the dealers. We're earning trust with them. What we owe them is that the product they have seen comes to market with the right level of quality. We've been very much focused on the retail business and not pushing wholesale on them.

Nissan is committed to a way of doing business that is focused on achieving a greater retail share by getting new products to a much wider audience. New product has a long-lasting impact when it's well executed. Our commitment is to widen traffic, audience, and improve customer interest. The dealers need to be focused on selling the value in the car to these new customers. As that gets done, we grow the business in a natural and consistent way.

Is it a long process?

Nissan Next and the transformation is a two- to three-year journey. It's going to take more than a year to judge whether we're succeeding or not. This is not like, "Oh, it's been one year, and it's done."

 Nissan Motor Co. COO Ashwani Gupta is personally overseeing the U.S. business to ensure the market gets the attention and resources that it needs. Has that attention helped?

It's been good for the region to have the top operational management of the company taking more time than in the past in fully understanding the results, the trade-offs sometimes that we need to make, and being fully supportive of providing the region with the right resources in terms of marketing, in terms of quality at launch. We are fully aligned on what it means to be doing good business in the U.S. We've agreed on what that means, how long it takes to make it happen and the importance of capitalizing on the new model launches. 

What has it been like steering Nissan through a major product overhaul during a pandemic and supply chain crisis?

There've been changes in how we work to organize those launches. But we never lost track of "no compromise on the quality" at launch. With these product introductions, we changed the way we go to market. We have additional marketing resources. It's been so important to be disciplined and to implement strictly what had been decided. Sometimes we've had to adjust because of changes, but that's the flexibility around making sure that we get a great new product to our dealers and our customers' hands.

Is Nissan prepared for electrification?

Nissan has announced, globally, that the model lineup will be electrified by 2030. The next significant milestone is Ariya, where we will be building on the experience with Leaf. We have over 150,000 very happy customers with Leaf to introduce Ariya. Our dealers know how to sell electric products. Our ambition is to give the customer the choice of always having an exciting car to drive with very good quality and solid residual values.

Given the relatively small market for sports cars in the U.S., why is Nissan investing in a next-generation Z?

Z has terrific heritage. It carries a huge amount of goodwill; it's one of the best-known models in the U.S. It makes people smile, and it has an ability to shine for the overall Nissan brand. It's an amazing model to display the technology and to remind everyone of how the brand is rooted in its heritage.

The business case is optimized to have a good return. I'm not going to elaborate on the specifics, but the intention is not to sell products that don't have a capability of enhancing the results for the overall region or company.

How will the redesigned midsize Frontier help Nissan get much-needed traction in the key U.S. pickup market?

There is an opportunity to redefine what a truck in that segment should be and to come up with what we believe is going to be the best product in the segment.

Frontier is a very solid brand name with a lot of positives around its durability and quality. [The redesign will] build on the consumer base we have and open up to new buyers that are looking for a lifestyle truck.

It's so good to have a new product at a time when the market is so strong. It was the case with Rogue. It's going to be the case with Pathfinder. And it should be the case with Frontier.

Historically, Nissan tends to "launch and leave" — under-investing during the product debut, only to have to resort to discounting later to move the vehicles. Are you committed to taking a different approach?

We are absolutely determined to make all these launches terrific. Each new product is an opportunity to change the way we do business and how we go to market.

There is a focus on the retail customer's satisfaction. So we invest higher levels of advertising than before. How we advertised has been adjusted. And we do it for longer to make sure that all these products deliver a wider audience into the dealer showroom. The change that the dealers are seeking is one that I'm committed to. We are about growing the audience, growing the traffic and selling the value.

How do you see the acceleration of online car-shopping changing the dealership experience?

The shift to online retail is one we've been preparing for with the dealer body. We are providing them with a platform that links into their operations, their inventory to [deliver] a wider customer base through very solid leads.

As there is a growing consumer interest in being able to have more information online and possibly doing an entire purchasing experience online, we are here to offer it with [email protected] But the sale always occurs with a dealer.

We've made significant investments in getting great products into the marketplace. It's a very good thing for dealers to bring up the dealership experience in their showroom to the level of the new product.