Asked whether his plan would involve job cuts, the CEO said it was not the first option available to the struggling German marque’s new owner.
“Since I took the helm of PSA we didn’t shut down any plant by PSA. This is not how we address the problem. I think shutting down plants is a simplistic way of looking at things. Before we reach that kind of dramatic situation, we have tonnes of things we can do to improve the efficiency of the plants,” Tavares asserted, going on to list online developments, internal logistics, reworking of existing plans, energy savings and “many, many” other ideas to improve efficiency.
Sounding a confident tone over the willingness of Opel’s management and workers to fall into line with PSA’s plans, Tavares spoke to how he proposed transferring the experience from Peugeot’s four-year recovery.
“We want to give them all the good ideas, the best practices that we have implemented in our own plans and I’m sure they are bright, well-educated and they will understand it is in their best interests to ‘copy paste’ everything they can from everything we have done so far,” he offered.
