This book is part bio and part Ghosn' own business methodology for turning around companies. It's applicable to the reader whether you are a CIO or if you are just the manager or leader of a small team. The basic methods of analyzing and measuring the problems are one and the same whatever the scale or issue. That's one reason why this is a worthwhile read.
Ghosn' multi-cultural background is interesting and fairly unique in the international business world - but that was only one factor contributing to his success at Michelin and Renault. It provided him a unique and invaluable outsider’s perspective in companies that were (at least initially) very much closed to any other way of thinking. Those two companies were his training ground for the turnaround at Nissan he led.
It’s well-written and an easy read. But it’s not a long book and some of the difficulties he went thru surely weren’t as easy as everything else he portrays.
Unfortunately, it's also not the story of the products that made Nissan into what it is today. You won't find the words "Infiniti" or "350Z" in the index, much less discussions of the "FM" platform that is a critical element of some of their most successful and desirable products. If you're interested in those topics you'll need to look elsewhere. Nonetheless, those things were not possible without Ghosn taking the business apart and putting it back together. And that's what makes this a worthwhile read.
This book was published in France in 2003 and I'm just reading it now in mid-2008. About 2-3 years ago we saw a drought of new products for Nissan and Infiniti... that fact and the resulting sales slump doesn't sync with what we saw in this book. The drought is over now... the brilliant success of Infiniti is reassured with new models, while the GT-R and the upcoming new Z will add needed luster to the Nissan brand. But I am still left wondering what happened... and we won't find that either in this book. Clearly an update is needed, but by an outside third-party.
My rating: 4 of 5 stars.
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