| La lettre du GERPISA
| no 101
|
Book Note - Nicolas Hatzfeld
Citroën,
Peugeot, Renault and the Others, Sixty Years of Strategies
Jean-Louis Loubet
Paris,
Le Monde-Editions, 1995, 637 pages
This book traces the history of large French firms and their strategies from
the Great Depression to the present day, focusing on problems raised, projects,
choices made, and their application. Research for the book was based on
analyses of numerous management and managerial archives of these companies as
well as on a series of interviews, all this contributing to both the dynamic
and particularly well-documented content of the book. Insofar as this period is
concerned, Jean-Louis Loubet's book represents, at present, the most complete
portrait of the French automobile industry. Six main themes make up the overall
structure of the book.
- Production choices made by the constructors reflect the tendencies of each
period : in depth maturation resulting from the crisis of the 1930s; new
postwar parameters creating conditions favorable to the expansion of mass
production; industrial and social complexities coming to the fore in the 1960s;
drastic squeezing during the 1980s. When rearranged, these choices also reflect
each company's identity.
- Association and regrouping policies : even though the state-run Renault
firm often initiates these types of agreements, it rarely succeeds, probably
due to its nationalized status. Peugeot, undoubtedly thanks to its financial
strength, becomes the pivot of the other French group, PSA. Insofar as the
future is concerned, the rich French experience in this domain tends to
encourage more selective types of agreements.
- Conception : progressively emancipating themselves from the American model,
French firms slowly but surely create the "French automobile" which combines
comfort, safety, and functionality. Whatever slackening that is to occur during
the 1970s is rectified during the 1990s.
- Relations with the French market : following mass production, the general
turning point achieved in the 1960s reveals Renault and Peugeot's dynamism as
well as Citroen and Simca's weak points and/or contradictions.
- For a long time, exporting is considered as secondary. Encounters with
America, especially those of Renault, are failures. The relatively recent
construction of an exportation strategy is nonetheless a methodical and
voluntary endeavor on the part of both groups. However, its strongly-emphasized
European dimension probably constitutes its weakest point.
- Finally, assembling automobiles abroad only recently emerged in a
progressive manner as an important strategic axis. Following years of simply
taking advantage of opportunities here and there, relaying plants were finally
set up towards the end of the 1960s, limited in their activity until these last
ten years.
Two other important themes are addressed in this book. The first
deals with company identity : each firm reacts in a specific manner to a
specific context, offering typologies which vary in function of the issues, but
which also attribute a meaning to the path each company has chosen. The second
theme discusses the importance of the relationship with the state. Not a single
one of the firms' major issues and/or choices are separated from state action :
the author does not hesitate to discuss the predominant role of the state, from
Renault's nationalization to fiscal measures, not to mention subsidies towards
decentralization, orders to export or regroup. Indeed and in several domains,
the image reflected by the firms is a highly Colbertist one
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