Dany Bahar Reinvents the Business Rules as Group Lotus CEO

[FKM]

18/09/2011

bron: http://goarticles.com/article/Dany-Baha ... O/5362317/


Rules are made to follow, to stand by and to respect. Rules surround every facet of our lives - they give us guidelines for living, working, socialising... in fact every part of our daily actions are controlled by rules enforced either by oneself or by others.

From birth, we learn to live by rules and we are disciplined into being obedient and observant of the guidelines laid down for us. As a rule, most people toe the line and accept discipline, perhaps veering slightly off course from time to time but nonetheless not straying too far.

And then there are some people who break the rules - intentionally. Usually these people are in contempt of discipline; their aim is to defy. They deny that for society to exist there needs to be certain controls. But while these rule breakers are made of cynical stuff, there are a handful of others in this world who break the rules by reinventing them.

These pockets of people usually have vision and foresight. They are not activists they are not deluded, they are emphatic that their gut feelings which tell them to break the rules, will produce successful results. One such person is Dany Bahar who, of his own omission has broken the rules, since taking over as CEO at Group Lotus some 20 months ago.

It could be said that Group Lotus broke its own rules in hiring the marketing guru - he is the first person to head the company who does not come from an engineering background. But since joining, it's Bahar who has bent the rules, reinvented them and even broken them. It's been an interesting 20 months at Group Lotus's Hethel headquarters where Bahar is now a quarter of the way through a five-year plan to revamp the Lotus brand and put it back on the international motoring map again.

Just 12 months ago, Bahar announced that already the brand was seeing a dramatic turnaround and there would be five new Lotus marques launched within the grand plan period. Now, that statement was something which certainly broke the rules, for 2010 was not exactly renowned for being a healthy year in the international car industry. Lay-offs in vehicle manufacturing plants both in UK and elsewhere were common place as managements sought to tighten their belts. There were shortened working weeks as well to assist budget trimmings.

Announcing five new models in as many years was, to some, tantamount to saying you're going to fly to the moon to bring back some cheese. But maybe this is what Bahar had in mind anyway!
In the last short while, Group Lotus has not only published its financial results (which showed that revenue was up), it has also inaugurated a new test track at Hethel and announced that one of the proposed five Lotus ' New Era' models, the Elan, was kicked into the long grass.

While relating these milestone moments to the media, and underscoring proof that his five year plan was well on course, Bahar was able to throw some much needed criticism at certain facets of the motoring media, berating them for what he refers to as 'uninformed cynicism'. This is a reference to some of the more unkind things, which have been said about him and his ambitions for Group Lotus, from some quarters.

He later took this journalist aside for a rare opening of the heart: "You could say that what we did last September, unveiling five new models in one go in Paris, reinvented the rules, per se. But sometimes in life you have to break the rules and sometimes you need them (rules). Most of all, the best trick is to learn how to bend the rules to your advantage," he told me.

It's a veiled comment which shows how the Bahar mind ticks. He's fully aware that he has taken on a huge challenge and, in so doing, has evoked criticism and cynicism from some corners of the motoring fraternity - and not just the media. And he's gone against a recognised rule book to exercise his ambitions for the Lotus brand.

Group Lotus has this week learnt that it will not now receive funding from the UK government, despite concerted efforts to present their case for a regional grant. It has been a blow to Bahar and his team but it is not going to stop his 'New Era' plans, although many on the sidelines now query where he will be able to get money from to finance the challenging agenda.

Some seasoned professionals in the industry are describing Bahar's plan as 'extremely tough'. While the Group Lotus team is literally burning the midnight oil to reach the targets set by the 'New Era' programme, outsiders are verbally decimating the new cars under construction.

They say that the new Evora IPS model is something of a non-starter - that it will never be able to take on the might of the acclaimed BMW 1-series M coupe nor Porsche's Cayman R. They say the Evora's gearbox is too slow, that the fit and finish is not brilliant. But hey, this car isn't launching onto the market for some time yet and, at the moment, it's all about modifying current prototypes until they get everything right. The team at Group Lotus is working overtime... and Bahar is there every step of the way with them because he seeks perfection and knows what sells. It's the marketing man within him which will not allow anything but the best, the finest and the truest to roll out of the Hethel plant bearing the Lotus name.

Meanwhile, he knows that upgrading of production facilities is necessary and without the UK Government funding, he's breaking the rules so to speak to ensure that funding comes from other directions to allow him to not only keep the 'New Era' plan rolling but also to keep the Proton investors happy.

There's no doubt about it, he's taken on a huge project but his ultimate goal will not be achieved if he doesn't break the rules of accepted business practice. He's proven in past chapters of his career that rule breaking is acceptable in order to achieve - he's putting the Bahar principles into practice once more to ensure that Lotus gets back on track again in more ways than one.

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