Vauxhall has a new chief. PSA Groupe announced Stephen Norman will lead the Vauxhall brand and Opel’s Irish unit. Norman was most recently the Senior Vice President, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer for PSA.
His appointment comes just days after Vauxhall announced it would slash another 250 jobs from the Ellesmere Port plant in Cheshire. The 250 redundancies come after last year’s 400 job cuts in an effort to make the plant more efficient. Norman will face two major tasks at Vauxhall: the decision to keep the Ellesmere Port plant operational and deal with diminishing sales across the United Kingdom. The UK has long been Opel-Vauxhall’s largest market.
Rory Harvey, appointed to the role under General Motors ownership, has led Vauxhall in recent years since 2015 but Norman will move into his new position on February 1, 2018.
Comments
Grandland X should certainly help boost Vauxhall sales here in the UK; so too the new Insignia now availability has improved and the model range is more complete.
However, a definite plan for Vauxhall’s future is required – not least as its bread and butter models are being caught in a pincer movement between the value players (e.g. Dacia, Kia, Hyundai et al.) below and the premium brands above (e.g. Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Jaguar etc.). Especially given so many sales are funded by lease of PCP finance, it’s frequently now cheaper to opt for a Jag, a Merc or a BMW than to go for say an Insignia.
Heck, for £45 more per month, I could be getting into a Jaguar XE in the morning, rather than an Astra Sports Tourer. And I’m not alone… Mercedes shifted more C classes last year than VX did Insignias.
“will lead the Vauxhall brand and Opel’s Irish unit” — interesting combination.
The position of Managing Director of Vauxhall Motors Ltd & CEO of Opel Ireland have been combined going back to the days of Duncan Aldred. It was the same with Rory Harvey who is “leaving” at the end of February. Aside from a salary saving, I think the original rationale behind the idea was one of language (English). I think more significant is that this is the first evidence of the start of the inevitable process to replace key Vauxhall & Opel Executives with PSA nominees. Stephen Norman has a good track record and certainly has plenty of marketing experience (he used to be marketing director of Rover – what a task!!!) and was very successful at PSA. Marketing is something Vauxhall / Opel have been absolutely hopeless at in recent years.
The way to profit is to look after customers so.e thing Mr Harvey failed to do
The Republic of Ireland market is so small, some manufacturers don’t bother with a Republic of Ireland subsidiary and instead operate via a distributor. Peugeots and Hondas for instance are distributed through Gowan Group; Citroens are distributed through UK based IM Group; Ssangyongs are distributed through Harris etc.
So unlike at least some of its competitors, Opel can cut out the middleman by supplying the Republic of Ireland market directly and save again by assigning responsibility for its Republic of Ireland operation to Vauxhall Motors which boosts profitability / competitiveness.
The other factor relevant to the Irish market is that it used imports – primarily from the UK – account for a significant proportion (40%+) of the Republic of Ireland market. Vauxhall’s haven’t been sold in the Republic of Ireland since the early 1980s – yet close to half of Opel-Vauxhall cars I see in the Republic of Ireland are wearing Vauxhall badges, which suggests a vibrant trade in grey imports from the UK Mainland and from Northern Ireland.
Totally agree with David – under Opel Group’s reign, Vauxhall’s marketing and promotional activity has gone horribly backwards. They’ve gone from producing world-class content (anyone remember the ‘Once driven. Forever smitten.’ campaigns?), to delivering content clearly produced for Opel and rehashed for Vauxhall and which, within a UK context simply doesn’t work. What little content they have created over recent years has been truly dreadful… Pyjama Mamma anyone?!
Stephen Norman is by all accounts a good guy who gets the commercial side of the business and gets the basics of shifting cars. Certainly, he appears to have been highly regarded at Rover – performing mini-miracles with limited resources and (sometimes) challenged product.
Also interesting is that Alberic Chopelin (former CEO, DS Germany) has been appointed to head up Group PSA’s Marketing activities across all brands i.e. Citroen, DS, Opel, Peugeot and Vauxhall across all regions. So hopefully that puts an end to kittens and supermodels once and for all!
… and Chopelin’s post has been assigned to Rasmus Reuter, until now responsible for aftersales at Opel.
Rasmus Reuter is already the second Opel manager who gets a leading position in the PSA Germany organisation.
… and this is also a way to reduce the head count at Opel management
This again will not inprove vauxhall’s profit or sales untill the customer can purchase a product that when repairs are required your customer service department listen to customers some thing Mr Harvey did very little off causing customers to leve the Dealer network and join the ever increasing army of independent garages
Tom
Tom Morris – I agree Rory Harvey was far from a star performer and I don’t know if you got to watch the Parliamentary Select Committee questioning Vauxhall execs over Zafira fires but it showed just how inept the management were – and Rory Harvey didn’t even bother to attend! As far as the dealers are concerned, I think it’s the same with almost all volume manufacturers, there is good and bad (and very bad) fortunately where I live in Kent the local dealer (Go Vauxhall) are absolutely brilliant, can’t fault them. BUT the dealer I purchased my Adam from (Bristol Street Motors) were total SH.T.
Service is certainly part of the solution, alongside product and communications.
When I was around my son’s age, I dreamed of growing up to drive a Vauxhall Magnum or a Vauxhall Firenza. A little later and a DTV Chevette or even an Opel Manta well and truly tickled my fancy. In my early teens, I lusted after Astra GTEs, Nova SRis and Lotus Carltons. And in my later teens I dreamed of owning a Calibra. And I wasn’t alone… Vauxhalls had serious kudos back in the day.
However, I very much doubt my 8-year old son or any of his mates dream of growing up these days to own a Vauxhall.
I was the same only I started with Gerry Marshall, Viva GTs & FD Ventoras!! (The trouble with being an old fart!). Unfortunately, the current situation that Vauxhall, and lets be honest Opel in Europe as well, means I think you’re right.
Vauxhall have a sales problem – they need to cut out the non profit fleet sales – stop chasing numbers.
I just want the rocker panels to be aluminum or something that windows 10 microsoft isn’t steel. Living in Wisconsin the trucks rust away before the mechanical parts go and Ford has the edge.