- How did Nissan’s product line strategy help or hurt its ability to respond to and recover from the disaster?
- Nissan’s aggressive strides in expanding their foreign manufacturing footprint into other continents like North America and other developing countries, assisted its production continuity during the crisis.
- Nissan, had a leveraged a regional decentralized supply chain structure, but with an instilled strong control and coordination during emergency situations. This helped maintain a flexible organization while incorporating various perspectives that were essential cultural attributes at the company.
- Nissan’s corporate officers were of diverse nationalities with most of them having vast experience in overseas operations-traits that weren’t common in other Japanese OEM’s. This diversity was a source of strength in management of a large global operation and valued that the executive team would respond to the unique constraints and opportunities that were present in each market.
- A simplified product line complemented Nissan’s flexibility. With an adoption of a build-in-stock strategy for a few SKU’s in each model and the rest a build to order strategy, management believed the strategy would help in simplifying its operations and product offerings and also increase its sales.
- Nissan’s prior experience in overcoming daunting challenges like the 1999 crisis, when it faced severe financial difficulties which were resolved by forming an alliance with Renault, such a deal prompted Nissan to confront its deep-rooted practices and biases and took bold measures to ensure the company’s survival and ultimate success.
- The 1999 near-death experience led to the inception of a risk management philosophy. Its main focus was on identification and analyzation of risks prior to their occurrence. Therefore, planning and quickly implementing countermeasures.
- The company had a put in place and a dedicated risk management function which was responsible for the crisis activities. And also, an executive-level committee that decided on corporate risks, inducted ‘risk owners’ to manage specific risks and report regularly to the Board of Directors on the its progress.
- Nissan had a well in place Earthquake Emergency-response plans in advance which were described in its 2010 annual report. Nissan’s emergency-response plan prioritized on human life, follow-on disasters prevention, rapid disaster recovery and business continuity, support for neighboring communities, companies and government.