XE, fleet market will drive Jaguar's surge, sales boss says

After years of weak sales because of its aging products, Jaguar is poised for a surge this year following the arrival of its new XE midsize sedan and updated large premium XF. The brand’s first crossovers will follow as Jaguar accelerates its efforts to increase sales to business customers and win buyers from BMW, Audi and Mercedes-Benz. Jaguar Land Rover’s global head of sales, Andy Goss, spoke about the challenges ahead with Automotive News Europe Correspondent Nick Gibbs.

What is the scale of opportunity for Jaguar this year?

Jaguar comes back as a tour de force in 2015. It’s the year of the Jaguar. We have invested a significant amount of money and we have a phenomenal model cadence going forward, starting with the XE. The Jaguar brand also spearheads Jaguar Land Rover’s real entry into the corporate market. We have been retail based, so our first goal is to get a similar share in the corporate market as in the retail market.

Jaguar Land Rover aims to double vehicle sales to 850,000 by 2020. What percentage will be Jaguars?

It will not be half but it will be a significant increase. Jaguar has massive headroom for growth. We have been selling 70,000 to 80,000 vehicles a year in the past couple of years. Now we are moving into white-space areas of the market with the XE taking on the BMW 3 series, Audi A4 and Mercedes C class. Other vehicles will follow.

The F-Type sports car is a low-volume model. Has it helped Jaguar?

Previously, people had a different, older image of Jaguar. When people think about Jaguar now, they think about the F-Type. It has provided an emotional fulcrum. That has been more important than the volume of F-Types sold, and it is also a massive support for the new XE, whose buyers will be making a decision on image and emotion as well as cost of ownership.

Jaguar is a challenger brand to the Germans. Can that be an advantage?

Jaguar’s volume is substantially less than theirs so clearly we have to challenge the established order the way Audi had to do with BMW and Mercedes not so long ago. We are creating clear differentiation for people to buy Jaguar over one of the German brands, which look myopically at each other rather than anyone else.

Where do you follow the Germans and where do you differentiate?

The German brands are slicing and dicing the marketplace by using existing platforms to find new niches to create volume. We do not have to look at the proliferation of our product range, instead we are launching full product ranges where we have not existed before. The customer does not care about any of that. What the customer wants to know is why to choose a Jaguar versus an Audi or BMW.

What are the headwinds?

For a BMW 3-series owner to consider us, they want to understand what they are buying into. We have to make sure brand experience is consistent the world over. The German brands have this consistency. We are trying to achieve that, but also with a key point of difference. We want to justify customers’ decisions for them -- to make sure they are happy and turn them into advocates.

Will the X-Type’s failure hurt?

Nobody outside media interviews mentions the X-Type to me. It’s an irrelevance in the same way that nobody talks about past Audi problems in the U.S. Life has moved on considerably over the past eight to nine years.

Will Jaguar have interesting dealership innovations such as we have seen from Audi, BMW and Mercedes?

We are rolling out a new corporate dealership architecture globally. We are bringing the two brands, Jaguar and Land Rover, together in one common ownership by 2018 in every sales territory. We want the customer to walk through the door of a Jaguar Land Rover retailer and see a proliferation of products: small, medium, large SUVs, crossovers, sports cars and sedans. Once the buyer is in that family we can migrate them throughout the product range. There will be flagship sites in addition to that.

What will make the flagship dealerships a unique experience?

It will be a brand experience on steroids. People want to go to a destination, something that has more than the local retailers in terms of the technologies, the type of products and the experiences you can buy into. Clearly capital cities are important, not for just the population living there but also for people visiting who just want to see what Jaguar Land Rover is all about.