The Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) Business Unit (BU) within automotive conglomerate Nissan with 534,945 units sales, globally in FY2009, has charted an exciting growth story in recent years. The LCV (upto 8 tons GVW) BU was constituted in 2004 to revitalise the specific needs of Nissan's LCV market worldwide. Its performance has exceeded initial expectations and promises to be an integral and vital part of Nissan's global growth in the coming years. The growth story began in 2005, during it's Value Up mid term business plan where LCVs were identified as one of four pillars within the Value Up Plan, a strategy for the years 2005-2007, aimed at promoting sustainable profitable growth at Nissan. The Nissan LCV BU Value Up business plan commitments to grow volumes by 40%, and to double the COP margin to 8% were delivered a year ahead of schedule, in 2006.
Today, the LCV business at Nissan is central to its growth plans for the future both in the short term and in the long term. Currently, Nissan LCVs are in 73 per cent of the world markets and contribute to roughly 20 per cent of the global sales of Nissan (needs tbc??). Nissan started LCV sales in Russia in September 2008, in the US in 2010 and will enter the Indian market in 2012. The strategic vision at Nissan places LCVs as one of the key drivers of growth and several initiatives, which speak of the parent company's long- term plans for the LCV business have been identified.
Investments to establish the foundations of a truly global business with seven regional LCV BUs in Japan, Europe, Africa, America, Middle East, PRC, India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) region have already been made. The regional BUs have been set up with a view to provide the contours of a sharply focused business capable of delivering products and services attuned to regional customer needs. Nissan LCV has production in all those regions and routinely leverages local talent to feed the facilities. In the US Nissan started production of LCVs in 2010 and will start sales in 2011.
This has allowed it to capitalise on the strengths of globalisation by sourcing talent, manufacturing capacities and R&D which in turn lead to greater efficiency and economies of scale.
The NP300, launched in February 2008, is a tangible example of the company's promise to provide its discerning business customers with an affordable, energy efficient, and eco- friendly, one-box business partner. The NV200 concept car showcased at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2009, provides a glimpse into Nissan's future product design direction, which places customer aspirations at the forefront of its development process.
Nissan, along with alliance partner Renault, is the only automaker committed to making all-electric vehicles available to the mass market on a global scale. Based on the pioneering technology developed for the forward thinking Nissan LEAF passenger car, the company will launch zero emission light vans in 2013.
