V olkswagen CEO Herbert Diess will divide responsibility within the Group for the world regions in the future for his brands. In the future, one leading brand will take over group-wide control of a clearly defined world region, said Volkswagen on Friday in Wolfsburg. Decisions could be made more decentralized. “We’re giving the responsibility over several shoulders,” Diess said.
In future, the Group Board in Wolfsburg will be better able to concentrate on the important strategic issues with this structure. “This is how we make Volkswagen faster, leaner and more efficient.” The VW boss had initiated the reorganization of the automotive group shortly after assuming office in April with the division into six business areas and also combined the individual brands into groups.
In the future, the core brand Volkswagen will take responsibility for business in North and South America and the sub-Saharan region. Audi will again coordinate activities in the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. Except that remains for VW important China business. The core brand now sells well every second of its cars in the Chinese market. Responsibility for China should remain with the Group in the future.
English courses for employees
The Spanish subsidiary Seat will have North Africa under itself, while Russia and India will come under the roof of Skoda. Skoda is thus also responsible for VW’s plans to build low-cost cars for emerging economies such as India with a partner.
A co-operation between the Czech Volkswagen subsidiary and the Indian automobile company Tata Motors had failed only just over a year ago. The strong demand for small cars in India currently serve mainly Maruti Suzuki and the Korean rival Hyundai, which together account for about two thirds of the sales.
In the meantime, the new VW personnel manager Gunnar Kilian endeavored to dispel concerns in the workforce, because of the global activities of the group English could soon become the corporate language. VW wants to improve the English language skills of its employees, but stay with German as a corporate language, VW had decided two years ago under Kilian’s predecessor Karlheinz Blessing.
“Of course, we expect our management, above all our upper management and our top management, to speak English,” said Kilian to the staff magazine of the VW works council. But that would mean no change in the operating language. “At the German locations German is still spoken in everyday life.” German does not lose its place. But English is important as a working language in a global company.