Alliance makes progress, but focus is still on Europe

The union is working better than many expected. Renault-Nissan has made progress in purchasing, achieving significant cost savings from platform consolidation and common sourcing, and Renault suppliers appear to have been accepted by Nissan. The alliance is on track to make big scale gains as the high volume Clio and Nissan C segment (Almera, Sentra, Sunny) models come on stream. But there remain problem areas. SupplierBusiness.com’s supplier satisfaction survey shows that while Tier 1s are being closely integrated, some Tier 2s say that they do not have the support that they need to meet cost and quality requirements. Communication is criticised. Smaller suppliers in Europe, where a lot of the purchasing integration is taking place, do not necessarily have the resources to report to Renault-Nissan in Japan as well as in Europe. The constant focus on cost reduction is a problem for some suppliers. There is also criticism that the different purchasing functions within the alliance do not communicate very well themselves, let alone with suppliers