Renault-Nissan Alliance veteran Francois Bancon heads up Product Strategy for Infiniti. He is charged with overseeing a 60 percent expansion of the brand’s vehicle range over the next five years.
How long have you been in this current role?
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Actually, I’ve worked for Infiniti for 15 years as I was in charge of all brands working for Nissan. But this role I have now, I have been in it since April and now I am working from Hong Kong. Infiniti needs a full-time strategic planner. The [Renault Nissan] Alliance wants to accelerate the progress of Infiniti.
Who do you report to?
I’m reporting now to I don’t know*….(joking)…it’s true because our president left for Cadillac in the US and at the same time our EVP in charge of Planning and Marketing, Andy Palmer left also, so there is a kind of vacancy here. We have José Muñoz who is for this transition managing Infiniti; he is EVP of Nissan North America.
*Nissan announced the appointment of Roland Krüger on 10 September as the new president of Infiniti but his start date is yet to be announced.
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By GlobalDataCould you explain what your position entails?
So, product strategy includes many things, from upstream to downstream. It’s about product development, so upstream it’s about how do we grow the brand? It’s about defining the priorities and defining the cars for the future, together with the technology which we absolutely need to have to reinforce the brand. That’s the first step, which leads to the next step, which is the company’s five year plan. There are many discussions as you could imagine, on what we can spend.
I’m in charge of each of the products that are being developed. For this, we have three main teams. One is, let’s say, the advanced planning or strategic team – which cars for which countries, what kind of volumes we can expect. We have a second department that we call ‘Market Experts’ and this is only for the big markets, let’s say US, China, Europe and to a less extent what we call ANO which is ASEAN and Australia. These people are the voice of the market. If you just centralise, you run the risk of losing touch with the reality of markets. So these five/six people are in charge to make sure that there is no disconnect: we make global products, but how do we tune these products to the needs of the markets?
The third step is our product specialists. These people manage, day by day, the development of car design, powertrain and so on. Overall, it’s not a big team, in all maybe 50/55 people. So, this is what I’m doing.
Infiniti used to have one of the youngest product ranges but now many models such as the QX50 and QX70 are old. Why?
The EX, which is what the QX50 was once called (launched in 2007) has been refreshed for China as that is now the main market for that car. But yes, there will be a brand new product to replace it, a different design. For other countries, we are now working on that too, so it will be a global car.
For the QX70 (launched in 2008 as the FX), it’s true that we have updated this car many times and we still have a good car, so when you manage a portfolio, you have to make priorities and this model has not been the highest priority in the portfolio. Our priority has been to extend our reach into compact cars. Q30, QX30, these are the new models for 2015, and some other ones to come. It’s already been a huge investment. Some other models might have to wait for a while to be updated.
Before he left, Andy Palmer said that the Q30 and QX30 would be built at Sunderland (England) for all markets. So the first compact model to be made at the new Mexican plant, what will it be, a larger ‘QX40’ crossover? And will it have the same Daimler MFA platform?
No, it’s not the same platform. The cars we will be manufacturing in the UK, yes, these will be [on] MFA. The one in Mexico is not MFA. They will be global platforms, but they are totally different. As for the second question, of course if we make such a major investment for [the Aguascalientes 2 plant in] Mexico, with Daimler, then we will have a new product. What this product will be, I cannot say.
A new plant, a new platform and a new product at the same time? That’s a lot of risk.
Not at all. In fact, we have no choice. Our manufacturing capability in the UK is very limited. The Mexico plant for Infiniti will be brand new, but it’s an extension of Aguascalientes [an existing Nissan factory]. It will be capable of doing a crossover, and a compact sedan on a new platform.
Will that be an Alliance platform or a Daimler one?
No, no, this is a co-development, not a Daimler platform.
