LOUIS SCHWEITZER: ROOTING FOR RENAULT
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In France he’s known as something of a brain
box - the mother of all high flyers. As a relative of the legendary Dr. Albert
Schweitzer and a cousin of the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, you could say that
great things were expected of him from the outset. He did not disappoint. A
graduate of the elite National School of Administration, he was running the
French Prime Minister’s private office before he had hit the big 4.O,
where he developed a reputation for putting in grueling sixteen hour days. His
rise within the ranks of Renault has been similarly meteoric - joining France’s
most famous company in 1986 and being named as both Chairman and Chief
Executive Officer barely six years later. Not bad for a man who readily admits
to being extremely shy and introverted. But despite his undoubted brilliance,
when Louis Schweitzer came to pen an introduction to the 1996 annual report, he
found himself cast into the role of the bearer of bad news. It had been a
particularly difficult year, he admitted, pointing to a severe and
challenging environment by way of mitigation. Then came the crunch -
for the first time in ten years the company had incurred a loss, and a
substantial one at that. It was at that point that Schweitzer resolved to turn
the fortunes of his company around, little realizing that his decisions would
provoke public unrest and throw him into the spotlight as never before.
"We had to rationalize our industrial
structures", the Renault boss affirms, "and in shutting the factory
at Vilvorde in Belgium, that’s exactly what I set out to do. In France, Renault
is very much a symbol - there is a great deal of emotion around us because of
our history, and its fair to say that a good deal of the reaction to the
proposed closure was emotional. I can understand that - but I can’t be bound by
it. Of course the decision was approved by the Board - but in the end
responsibility rests in one person - and that person was me."
Once the furor over the Belgian closure had
begun to die down, others began to praise Schweitzer’s courage in being prepared
to face up to tough decisions - however unpopular their consequences. But probe
a little behind his gentlemanly and quiet facade, and you will soon see that
when it comes to courage Schweitzer has an impeccable pedigree indeed. For
during the war years many-a-Frenchman learned to come to terms with the reality
of occupation. Not so Schweitzer’s own father, whose membership of the
Resistance led to his deportation to the concentration camp of Buchenwald,
where he was repeatedly tortured - although unlike others he lived to tell the
tale.
"My father never spoke about his
war-time experiences when I was a child. But I was very much aware of what he
had been through. How did this affect me? Well, it made me realize that in life
you do have choices. Choices which you can make on political or moral grounds -
because you believe passionately that a particular course of action is the
right thing to do. Of course you can’t compare experiences, but I like to feel
that I have inherited from him an ability not to shrink from taking tough
decisions as and when the occasion requires it."
Perhaps it was precisely because of the
trauma of the war years that Schweitzer has emerged as a passionate spokesman
in favour of European Union, insisting that we should all be pressing on
full-steam ahead when it comes to the issue of monetary union - even if this
requires the French government taking a series of tough measures in order to
meet the Maastricht criteria. "Because you cannot have a common market
without a single currency - to me that is self-evident. Having a single
currency is an integral part of building a single efficient market for Europe.
And waiting, as we are doing now, is not in my view the best way of managing
time. You just don’t get anywhere, I’m afraid, by standing forever in the
middle of a stream."
But how does his enthusiasm for Europe fare
when it comes to the issue of enlargement, Euro-speak for the inclusion of a
number of East European countries into the ranks of the Union? Not very well,
it has to be said, the Renault CEO convinced that there are a number of
institutional questions which need to be resolved before recruiting new member
states.
So what’s it like to be the head of France’s
second largest company and running the 10th largest car firm in the
world? After all, Renault still managed to produce almost 2 million vehicles in
1996, despite its financial woes.
"Well", he replies thoughtfully,
"its very much like being the boss of any other large company actually.
What does make it different is that we are a one-product firm - ours is a very
tangible business - we live and work with cars. That makes it exciting. You can
think and develop an new product. If you decide to make a new car, it is your
choice to choose and design its characteristics."
But what’s at the heart of the excitement?
After all no one in France is in any doubt that Schweitzer could have gone on
to have a glittering career in politics in his own right.
"I guess its because I like objects more
than paperwork. I always loved cars as a young boy. Still do. Plus there is an
element of gambling when it comes to the conception of a new car - especially a
car like the Scénic. Do you want to put in on the market or not? Is the styling
right or not? You are advised, of course, but the CEO gives his opinion in the
last resort. Its all tangible stuff and the buck stops with me."
With over 140,000 people on the Renault
payroll its hardly surprising that Schweitzer should have a number of pressing
items on his agenda. But high on his list of priorities is the issue of affordability.
Because ask anyone in France what they think of the new Espace, for
example, and the chances are that they will reply ‘lovely, but too dear’. The
solution is not to reduce salaries, Schweitzer insists, but to reduce the
amount of labour required. And he cites both Germany and Belgium (where labour
costs are significantly higher than in France) as countries where companies can
still produce cars more competitively than in France.
As he slips away from his Paris headquarters
in his dark blue Safrane Initiale (although he does make a point of driving all
the new cars of his main competitors) the chances are that you will find
Schweitzer heading off towards an art gallery or theatre rather than the
cocktail circuit. In fact when he was at the Avignon festival this summer he
packed in no less than 8 plays in 4 days. And whatever he might tell you about
his shyness he doesn’t require all that much encouragement before rattling off
a verse or two from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta.
With France rather slower than a number of
its European counterparts to emerge from recession, and with unemployment
running at record rates in his own country, can Schweitzer muster up any
enthusiasm for the future as the new millennium approaches? Most certainly.
"The big challenge for Renault is to
find growth outside of western Europe. The company managed to establish a
better balance in Europe, true. But we haven’t succeeded in having growth here
for a decade now. That’s why we are building our plant in Brazil (at Curitiba)
for example - we need to go where the growth is. People always speak about the
car market as a mature market - that everyone already has their car. That’s
true for the US, Europe and Japan. But for 80% of the people in the world the
car remains a very remote object, only for the rich and privileged. So one of
the challenges ahead is to expand the automobile civilization to those
countries which are not yet at that level of development. And there are
important environmental challenges too. As for me, personally, I have to
confess that I rather like life as it is."
The main Web site of freelance writer Jeremy
Josephs is at www.jeremyjosephs.com Please check there if you might be interested in
engaging him as a writer.
Many of his articles are available online.
Please check the sitemap
for a complete list.