What Van? Britain's biggest and best van buyers' guide

Much has been made of Renault’s restructuring plans aimed at saving €2bn (£1.8bn). Job losses of 4,600 are planned in France alone, with a further 10,000 across the world. Of course, Renault is not alone in implementing some pretty drastic plans in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, but on the light commercial vehicle side of the business at least, some pretty big decisions had already been made. 

There’s been a change in leadership within the vans division at Renault with Ashwani Gupta being replaced as the head of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance LCV Business by Denis Le Vot. Gupta now finds himself as chief operating officer at Nissan, while Le Vot, after little over a year in the job, has been promoted to the position of executive vice-president of Renault sales and marketing. While in the hot seat, both men presented a clear vision of the future for the Renault brand, but Gupta would candidly speak most often of the business strategy while Le Vot enthused about the exciting direction the products and services would take. The Renault Brilliance Jinbei Automotive Co. is a shining example of the vision Gupta had for the Alliance LCV strategy, while the last-mile delivery products like the EZ-Flex revealed under Le Vot’s tenure symbolise the daring experimentation the company hopes will provide the delivery solutions for cities of the future.

“This company [Renault Brilliance Jinbei] was built in 2017 thanks to Ashwani Gupta,” explains Thierry Plantegenest, vice-president global sales and marketing vans and pick-ups.

“We already presented our new focus on China, which is focused on LCV and electric vehicles, leveraging Renault know-how. The Chinese market is a huge market, more than 3.5 million vehicles per year, and forecast to maintain a steady upward path. The idea is that [in China] Jinbei is very well known – more than 1.5 million customers using a Jinbei car, and they’re selling 162,000 units per year. With Renault expertise, and the fact that we are a leader on LCVs in Europe, the idea is to modernise and extend the line-up.”

Plans are in place to establish a core model portfolio by 2025 and then begin exporting them to other regions, while Jinbei vans are already being sold in some Latin American markets like Peru, as well as Egypt. 

“At this stage, we are working on putting know-how from Renault into their new models. We can bring some electric expertise. The key point is to be local – because if not we will be out of the market,” Plantegenest says.

Of course, the coronavirus has and will have an impact on global markets and sales expectations, but speaking ahead of Renault’s post-Covid organisational restructuring plans and cost savings, Plantegenest indicated that challenging times lay ahead: “The crisis will impact global vehicle production by six million units. These predictions are not very encouraging for us. The first challenge is the health and safety of our employees. That is a top priority – number one is be safe. Number two is put [plans] in place to restart the business. We will restart our plants in a few weeks, but [we are] also putting a lot of energy to support our customers and our network and reinforcing a lot of digital training because it is vital. We are selling a lot of vans by digital in many countries and it’s the new channel and one we have to improve on.”

In May, Renault introduced a new Online Stock Reservation tool on Renault.co.uk made available to both Renault car and Renault Pro+ van buyers to enable customers to reserve a vehicle from stock. 

“We can imagine 10% or 20% of our sales by these channels,” says Plantegenest. “But this is just a beginning. Sometimes the professional customer has to test the van and one of the actions we are now trying to put in place is test drives of more than one week, in some countries. We are putting in new standards and methods for delivering a van and to repairing a van. We will change many things and maybe the demand will change too. We will have to be very flexible and very reactive.”

Technology is at the heart of this new direction Renault is having to take. Even before the coronavirus the manufacturer was talking of the next steps in matching customers to the right product. The importance of those systems has become even more relevant in a new world where sales channels are obstructed by social distancing.