Does size matter?

摘要

The car industry is famously incestuous. In Detroit, for example, top executives who have spent decades loyally serving their company think nothing of hopping to a rival across town. So is there a lesson in the fact that the two hottest bosses in the business, Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan and Jean-Martin Folz, of PSA Peugeot Citroeen, are outsiders? Both have defied the doubters who thought their companies were doomed, by turning round their fortunes rapidly. Mr Ghosn was at least on the fringes of the industry (working for Michelin, a tyre maker, before joining Renault), but Mr Folz became boss of Peugeot in 1997 after a career in sugar and aluminium. Maybe the real significance is that they are both French. Mr Folz has fallen in love with the car industry because, unlike dull commodity sectors, it combines so many different elements, from complicated manufacturing to design flair. "It's capital-intensive, it's people-intensive. But it's also about a fashion product," he says. "You never know in advance how a model will sell." One of the secrets of the recent success of both Peugeot and Renault is that they have embraced the fashion side of the business, with rapid development of seductive new models backed by sexy advertising, typified by Renault's "size matters" campaign.