With a global restructure taking effect this year, Michelin has developed 10 newly-created regions worldwide, including Michelin Europe North that has a new CEO.
The restructure comes as the company looks to simplify procedures and expand digital services and processes with a greater focus on customer service. The company says the restructure will give staff more freedom in decision making as well as increased autonomy and responsibility.
With the creation of Michelin Europe North, sales regions for Germany/Austria/Switzerland, the UK and the Nordics will be combined. It includes 10 countries: Austria, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK. Its new headquarters and a new center for OEM business will be in Germany. Europe North is the third-largest of the now ten newly-formed Michelin regions worldwide – just behind the U.S. and Europe South, which includes Michelin’s home market of France.
“Rapid change is a sign of our times,” said Anish K. Taneja, Michelin Europe North’s new CEO. “Michelin’s new structures are characterized by efficient and transparent processes giving staff a high degree of individual responsibility and an increased scope of action. More than ever, we see ourselves as a mobility provider with a product and service portfolio aimed entirely at fulfilling our customers’ needs. Refocusing our activities towards customer structures and processes will make it easier for our customers to do successful business with Michelin. That is how we will achieve profitable growth in clearly defined steps.”
Taneja is responsible for all of the Michelin Europe North’s activities, Previously, he worked in roles at Deutsche Lufthansa AG and Sixt SE before joining Michelin in 2013. Mst recently, he was responsible for all commercial activities of the previous Michelin region covering Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
Already in the new year, a new president and CEO took over Michelin North America, and the company announced a massive distribution partnership with Sumitomo Corporation of the Americas.
Taneja said one of the reasons for this new group structure is to match similar customer needs within each of the new regions together.
“We have compared the different customer demands in our markets with each other,” he said. “The new regions’ boundaries run along natural borders where customers have similar demands of Michelin and of our products and services… We will be able to react even faster and with even more precision to market changes and requirements.”
With the formation of a new management team, the tiremaker said it aims to adjust its employees and distributors to react in a more flexible way to the constant changes in the industry.
