Carlos Ghosn - Turnaround Specialist?

Carlos Ghosn, the Nissan and Renault CEO, is the first person ever to run two big corporations on Fortune top 500 global companies. The owner of GM – General Motors, Financier Kirk Kerlorian reserves high hopes on Ghosn actions. FYI, the current GM is in 10.6 Billion of losses, although it’s the 5th world largest corporations. Kerkorian is hoping to get Ghosn as CEO of General Motors, and force Rick Wagoner, GM's current CEO, out through the merger, as he believes that Ghosn is what GM needs to return to profit.

Ghosn has made the first historical turnaround in 1999 for Nissan. When he joined the company, it had a $20 billion debt and only three of its 48 models were making any profit. One year after he arrived, Nissan profited 2.7 billion dollars and had an operating margin of 10.6%. For seven years, Ghosn has maintain both Nissan and Renault successfully growing and and delivering profit and value. Apparently the system is stable and the alliance is win-win.

Ghosn wants to take the challenge to fix GM’s problems. With this, he needs to find benefits to both Renault and Nissan by doing so. He launches a few strategies to get GM back on track. Firstly, kill some brands and focus on attractive new ones. Secondly, take fuel into consideration. Invest into alternate-fuel engines. Thirdly, look for exclusive synergy. Use cross functional team work. Collaborate with eachother. Lower down waste and double work, improve productivity. Subsequently, “Keep Score”. Ghosn believes that the two-party alliance can perform so well through the years, so can be done, the situation where, three parties will have the same impact and benefits to each other.