"Team Spirit" The Key

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32166, 9 December 1969, Page 22

"Team Spirit" The Key

Although British Leyland was a big company, it had still managed to preserve the spirit of a small company, and this, with people feeling part of the team, was the only way to make the company work. Lord Stokes, the chairman and managing director of British Leyland, said in Britain recently when discussing the company’s future plans. “Half the trouble with the country today is that we do not know where we are going. But we know where we are going in British Leyland,” Lord Stokes said, reports John Langley in the “Daily Telegraph.” “There are four or five major companies in the world

that we have got to beat. I think we can manage the Americans. Their competition is formidable, but people who have come from the American companies have been staggered by the speed at which we can make decisions compared with these monolithic organisations,” Lord j Stokes said. j LITTLE DOUBT British Leyland officially) came into operation in May, 1968, though its formation was announced a few months earlier. Although it was politely termed a merger, there was little doubt right from the start as to who would be the boss. Lord Stokes admits there were some human problems “though they have not been as difficult as we thought. The people at B.M.C. and on both sides responded remarkably quickly to the new leadership. “There was a lot that needed doing. They had no new model policy after the Maxi.” In the following months substantial progress has been made though it may not sound particularly exciting to outsiders. The whole of the internal procedures and methods of what used to be B.M.C.—now the Austin/ Morris division—has been reorganised for greater efficiency. “Fantastic changes” have also been made in overseas marketing arrangements: British Leyland sell 48 per cent of its products abroad. At home in the Austin/ Morris mass production division the aim is to develop

two self-contained manufacturing complexes at Longbridge, Birmingham, and Cowley, Oxford, "instead of carting body shells *ll over the country. We intend to keep the two names going, but we are going to build (different sorts of cars.” j Austin will continue with j the B.M.C. theme of advanced | engineering while the new (Morris models will be more (conventional in design to compete directly with Fords, Vauxhalls and Hillmans. i In the specialist car diviI sion, comprising Triumph, 'Royer and Jaguar/Daimler. i British Leyland already has an edge over its competitors in the prestige car market “We are expanding it as fast jas we can,” said Lord Stokes. | NEW VEHICLE )! Extra capacity is being int stalled at Rover, partly to | produce an entirely new type |of four-wheel drive vehicle due out next year. Inevitably ( there will be some overlap ■ between the various models in this division—“we want ; some overlap but not head-on ) competition. On the car side the 1 aim is ' to capture 50 per cent of ) new car registrations in Bri--1 tain compared with British ; Leyland’s 40 per cent share. “I don’t think it is develop--1 ing too badly if you take into ; account that we have had an unprecedented year for indu - ’ trial disputes,” said Lord ■ Stokes. “We have actually increased our output by 7.5 per * cent I believe the possibili- ■ ties are fantastic—if we don’t > kill them through strikes.”