Nissan's Turnaround Story

Three of Renault's top executives - Carlos Ghosn (Executive vice president, Renault), Patrick Pelata (Senior vice president, vehicle development) and Thierry Moulonguet (Vice president, capital expenditure controller) were appointed on Nissan's board as Chief Operating Officer, Executive Vice President-Product Planning and Strategy, Managing Director and Deputy Chief Financial Officer of Nissan respectively. When the executives from Renault headed by Carlos Ghosn (Ghosn) came down to Japan, Japanese newspapers reported that Ghosn was a 'cost killer' and would take drastic cost cutting measures. Contrary to the reports, immediately after taking over as the COO of Nissan, Ghosn did not announce any plan for Nissan's revival, nor did he announce any cost cutting measures...

Though Nissan had set the official target for returning to profitability as FY 2002, it announced profits in FY 2001 due to successful implementation of the NRP. For the FY 2001, Nissan announced an operating profit of $3.92 billion and an operating margin of 7.9%. Nissan's debt was reduced to $3.48 billion and its stock also moved up hitting a 52 week high of $15.97 per share on NASDAQ. Announcing Nissan's 2001 financial results Ghosn declared - "The Nissan Revival Plan is over. [The record results] are the fruit of the NRP, fruit that even the most optimistic of outside observers in 1999 didn't think of." After the implementation of the NRP, Nissan saw its market share slowly increasing with the launch of new products...