On September 1st, Olof  Persson took over from Leif Johansson as president of Volvo AB and CEO of the Volvo Group. In his previous position as CEO of Volvo Construction Equipment, he had acquired the reputation of being someone who moulds organisations and teams in his own way (and with success).  He is quickly going to apply the same recipe to the heavy goods activities of the Volvo Group.

Exit Stefano Chmielewski

The major news is that the brands of the Volvo Group will no longer be so independent. All R&D and production activities within the group, along with purchasing, will be located within two transversal units reporting directly to Olof  Persson.
As for the brands, they will no longer be the direct responsibility of the CEO, but of one of three geographical zones, namely the Americas (Mack), EMEA (Renault Trucks and Volvo Trucks) and Asia-Pacific (UD Trucks, formerly Nissan). But this only involves responsibility for sales and marketing, because all the development, purchasing and planning aspects will be located in the transversal unit ‘Product planning, product development & purchasing’.
It remains that the links between the brands (which extends across all geographical zones), and these three zones ‘Global Truck Sales and Marketing’ is not yet very clear to anybody. “Renault Trucks will retain its worldwide responsibility for sales, even if the way in which the distribution networks will be organised outside of the EMEA zone has not yet been finalised. For the time being, we only know the broad outlines of the new organisation”, explained Bernard Lancelot, director of communication for Renault Trucks.
It is also the case that the new organisation has also claimed its first victim, in the person of Stefano Chmielewski, who was to have passed on his position as president of Renault Trucks to Heinz-Jürgen Löw on January 1st 2012, but who will now give it up on November 1st 2011 in order to take charge of the governmental sales of the Volvo Group. Löw thus comes to head up the brand whose European operations used to be his responsibility, with the objective of maintaining the position of Renault Trucks within an organisation which is more globalised than ever. .

Common R&D service

Within the Volvo Group, a transversal unit will take charge of planning and developing new products. “Each brand will communicate its requests and specifications to this unit”, explains Bernard Lancelot. But what will happen in a case of deciding between the competing requests of Renault Trucks and Volvo Trucks (outside of programmes which have already been launched for the futureFH/FM et Premium) ? it is too early to tell…