Jaguar Land Rover CEO Speth outlines revival plan

Jaguar Land Rover’s current problems -- weakness in China, Brexit worries, customers’ flight from diesels -- are weighing heavily on its Indian parent company. In February, Tata’s share price fell 30 percent after the automaker reported a quarterly loss. Tata had to reduce the value of its British subsidiary by nearly $4 billion. There is speculation that Tata is looking into strategic options, including a sale of the British brands, and PSA CEO Carlos Tavares has expressed interest. JLR CEO Ralf Speth discussed these topics and more with Automotive News Europe sister publication Automobilwoche's publisher, Helmut Kluger, and editor, Burkhard Riering.

According to media reports, JLR parent Tata is looking into strategic options, including the potential sale of the company. Have there already been discussions on this?
That something you actually should ask the Tata supervisory board. But I can tell you this: There is no question that the Tatas are giving Jaguar Land Rover their full support. The Tata Group and Ratan Tata personally are very closely tied to Jaguar Land Rover.

After a number of strong years JLR is facing significant headwinds. What are your biggest challenges this year – other than Brexit?
The entire auto industry is on the brink of huge changes. Whether they are regulatory, economic, geopolitical or technological, they all have to be funded. We have been working on this for a while. Our current improvement program, which focuses on profitability and cash, has been underway since 2018. We are reducing investments and expenditures, eliminating complexity and tightening processes in many areas. We are getting down to business anywhere we can improve efficiency in the short term. We are also carrying out a separate program for systemic and strategic improvements in efficiency.

You are also going to cut jobs, right?
That is the most difficult part. That's another reason we started early. In 2018-19, 2,500 temporary workers were separated from the company, and at the start of the year, we launched a voluntary settlement program, which 2,500 employees have accepted. The measures were completed by the end of March so we could begin the new fiscal year on April 1 with a leaner organization. We know exactly what we are doing.