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New Nissan chief aims to boost fleet demand
Date: 28 January 2013 | Author:
Nissan's new corporate sales director Jon Pollock is aiming to increase the manufacturer's share of the core fleet and leasing market, claiming it's an area in which the Japanese brand isn't punching its weight.
"This is where our growth opportunity lies, we don't do enough," Pollock told BusinessCar.
"Retail has a high demand for the Juke and Qashqai in particular and it should transfer, so we will focus more on that in 2013 - true corporate development is very much the target for 2013 and 2014.
"A lot of the work done in 2012 created the foundations but we'll put in more focus and effort in 2013."
Pollock rejoined Nissan, his former employer, late last year after 10 years with Toyota, most recently as general manager sales operations, and has inherited a team where much of the groundwork had already been put in place during the past 12 months.
"In 2012 we had a reshaping of the team, rebalancing resources across the Nissan team with more resources for the core fleet team to help plan how to go to market," he said.
"It starts with organising ourselves in the right way - more heads, more people on the ground and sophisticated support for the team. To tackle the corporate arena you need to be very easy to approach."
Pollock declared that he is trying to bring the mantra to Nissan of being "easy to do business with", and said improvements need to be made to digital communications, as highlighted in BusinessCar's website survey report late last year, where Nissan performed poorly against some of its peers.
Growth in the firm's number of business centres is one strand, with the number having swelled from 50 to 72, and a target of taking that to 90-95 of the near-200-strong dealer network.
"We've got to have the right coverage but we've got to have the right quality," said Pollock. "Consistency is very important. If you're only delivering 10 of the 20 things you're promising then what's the point?"
Pollock said he is looking to develop a different approach for small and larger fleets through the business centre dealers.
"We need to recognise the different requirements for large national fleets to SMEs. There is an opportunity for someone to drill down and take advantage of the differences," he concluded.
"Lots of manufacturer programmes try to be vanilla and serve all things."
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