Renault-Nissan alliance to reveal new strategy by May

The leaders of the embattled Renault, Nissan, Mitsubishi alliance put forward a unified face by unleashing a new divide-and-conquer plan to bolster their troubled business.

The strategy calls for dividing the world geographically, with partners spearheading operations in the regions where they are strongest. And it adopts a leader-follower approach to engineering, in which they will divide responsibilities for R&D among them.

Details of the plan will be fleshed out by May, when the individual companies plan to individually announce new mid-term plans that take into account their production footprints and product development needs, Renault Chairman Jean-Dominique Senard said on Thursday.

But some directions are already clear. In terms of geographic responsibilities, Renault will take the lead in Europe, Nissan will be the director in China and Mitsubishi will head Southeast Asia. They did not specify a point company for North America, though Nissan is the biggest player there.

The companies will also divide engineering work, with one company leading R&D and product development in a given area and the other companies sending people to assist. This will differ from the old method which had teams, for example, in France and Japan working in tandem.

Via Automotive News