Meet the boss: Get to know Scania UK’s Managing Director

Yes, and that’s going to carry on for a long time. The British automotive industry is complex, the truck industry is complex, the solutions are complex, and the acronyms are complex. There’s a whole new language I need to learn.

I think anybody would be lying if they said they weren’t nervous and curious on starting a new job. Obviously, it had been a very serious day for the country the day before, so it was odd to be starting something so new and so fresh when we had experienced the end of something so poignant and permanent the day before.

So, it was an odd emotional journey to go from one tonality of life on one day to the next. But just the sheer level of activity has meant that it very quickly felt like business as normal.

It’s been fantastic to be exposed to the operational side of the business so soon, even if I didn’t understand what people were talking about. It was a fantastic first day!

Funnily enough, my picture was being beamed directly from the screen behind reception, when I walked in. It’s not often when you walk-in through the door and you’re greeted by yourself.

Joking aside, first and foremost it is a fantastic support centre building, and it is something our whole company should be proud of.

I think it represents Scania phenomenally well. And while I’m yet to get out and see the other facilities, I see this as an aspiration for others. This is what we should absolutely be striving for.

The impression as you arrive, the building and the people represent the perception and emotion of Scania – and that’s fantastic.

Being the Managing Director and working for some of the great brands in the automotive industry – Volkswagen Group, Jaguar Land Rover and, now Scania, is a fundamental privilege as far as I’m concerned.

These brands have been around for 100 years, and they will be around for another 100 years. If we all embrace the simple philosophy – the brand will outlast us. We are temporary guardians that need to serve this great brand well.

I’ve been given this tremendous privilege at a time when the industry is changing. We’ve had, give or take, 100 years of the internal combustion engine, and over the next 15 to 20 years we will be in a different world and different environment.

This journey will come with its own challenges, opportunities, changes and developments, including what it means to our brand, our people and our lifestyles. I couldn’t have joined at a more exciting time.

In the short term the challenge is to get up to speed, to understand and to get to know our people and Scania better.

But the biggest challenge is understanding and navigating between climate and weather. We have got to have, as a company, have a strong, robust strategy that sees us through the climate change of electrification, digitalisation, sustainability, etc. Then we must adjust and adapt with the right tactics to see us through the weather changes, such as chip supply shortage, Ukraine, cost of living challenges, etc.

Look at the micro budget we’ve just had in the UK. It’s bigger than most actual budgets, yet they still called it a micro budget.

That understanding between weather and climate is crucial. When do we tactically respond? And when do we change our strategy?

For me, we’ve got to get the right strategy with the right flexibility and deploy the right tactics as the weather changes.

At the moment, it feels pretty stormy on the weather front, but the good news is that weather can change pretty quickly. So hopefully we are presented with some sunny days, and then it’s our job to take advantage of those.

In the short term the challenge is to get up to speed, to understand and to get to know our people and Scania better.

But the biggest challenge is understanding and navigating between climate and weather. We have got to have, as a company, have a strong, robust strategy that sees us through the climate change of electrification, digitalisation, sustainability, etc. Then we must adjust and adapt with the right tactics to see us through the weather changes, such as chip supply shortage, Ukraine, cost of living challenges, etc.

Look at the micro budget we’ve just had in the UK. It’s bigger than most actual budgets, yet they still called it a micro budget.

That understanding between weather and climate is crucial. When do we tactically respond? And when do we change our strategy?

For me, we’ve got to get the right strategy with the right flexibility and deploy the right tactics as the weather changes.

At the moment, it feels pretty stormy on the weather front, but the good news is that weather can change pretty quickly. So hopefully we are presented with some sunny days, and then it’s our job to take advantage of those.

I think after a week, what I’m struck with most is the similarities. Whether it’s electrification, rising costs, product development timing schedules, ownership or customer experience. Whatever it is, the similarities and the challenges are, I would say, identical.

What I need to get my mind around are how different are the solutions.

For example, passenger cars have been doing service plans for years. When we launched the Range Rover Evoque, you could service your car for five years for £499. As we moved throughout the years, we had a pot generated by customers paying their £499, but our oil and servicing costs were going up, and the technology in the car was changing.

Everything was getting more expensive. But we had a pot that was based off the £499 fee.

The same challenges exist in the haulage industry with our service contracts. We agree a service contract with our customers, at that time, at a fixed cost, but then no-one imagined inflation at 10%, and gas and electricity costs rising by 30-40% in such short periods of time. What struck me are the similarities, not the differences.

I’m sure the differences will come as well, but a week in it is the similarities that resonate the most.

In some ways yes. But in my global role at Jaguar Land Rover, I went from country to country, and everyone said: ‘we are different here’. And then promptly talked about the customer experience, the expectations of the customers and the difficulties they were facing in delivering those.

Those situations were identical to all the other countries I had just visited. And for all the countries I was going to visit. I think it’s a tendency in humanity to view everything as different when in fact we are united far more than we are differentiated.

There was no doubt about it that some markets were more complex and sophisticated than others, largely driven by the level and variants in finance taken to fund the purchase.

There are complexities, but at its most simplistic – it’s about what does the customer want from us and that is broadly the same across the world.

The main one I was expecting was the difference between retail customers and business to business customers.  I started my career out of university in business-to-business (B2B) selling. Throughout my career I have always retained some responsibility for B2B selling.

So, for me it is coming full circle. It is about flicking that switch or turning that dial back up to 100% to say that all customers are B2B customers.

But again, if you have a B2B customer relationship and whether you’re selling trucks or selling Defenders, or selling executive cars to a fleet, the dynamics and the fundamentals are the same.

Fleet operators want to make sure their drivers are looking after their vehicles, that they are driving economically, that it is being serviced, and most importantly of all, that they are meeting all the requirements around driver safety and wellbeing.

Fleet management is fleet management. All that changes is that some elements are more important than others, subject to which segment of the industry you’re in.

I’m a great believer of never say never. For me, I’ve always loved being close to the customer. It’s fantastic and I have loved dealing with the retailing divisions of automotive, whether it is direct selling, franchised sites or some other means of retailing to the customer.

To come full circle and be responsible for an organisation that has franchised partners and its own wholly owned network is a dream come true. I couldn’t have asked for a better opportunity.

I guess, for that particular audience, I would ask their patience and forgiveness. But I’m not aware of anybody being born with a silver truck in their mouth.

Everyone in the industry has learnt the truck industry, they weren’t born with the knowledge. They had to learn it.

The second thing I would say is, very rarely has major changes in the industry been solved or optimised by doing: ‘what we’ve always done’. The great thing is to learn from other people’s experience and adapt that experience.

Even as a fleet operator, your interactions with the vehicle manufacturer is less than the suppliers putting stuff on your vehicles. You’ll deal with your goods suppliers hourly, daily or weekly. You will have an interaction with every single ship load, but you won’t have an interaction with the truck manufacturer every time the vehicle moves. So, we need to look externally to see what will shape customers view of good experience

Looking at what others do and learning from others is key. Imagine where Apple would be today if they had just decided to stick to producing computers! Probably bankrupt which is not an outcome any business wants to consider.

That is a good question. Throughout my business career, I have been very, very lucky that I have had a great set of bosses.

They have supported me and have given me the freedom to develop and grow. I learned different things from all of them, and I am reluctant to name any one of them, because I think it would be unfair on the others by possibly forgetting a name.

Whether it was my managers at Volkswagen Group – many of them gave me promotions and helped me develop my career and that continued at Jaguar Land Rover, where I was introduced to the global business world, all of them helped to make me what I am today.

Some of them were brilliant in their thinking and their clarity. Some of them were brilliant in their understanding of people. Some of them were massively supportive in terms of team dynamics and getting people to learn together.

I’ve tried throughout my career to pick the best from them. It could be their energy, a way of thinking, a turn of phrase, a perspective on life or business and, let’s be honest, very occasionally there has probably the odd time where I’ve learnt what not to do as well. No one is perfect that’s what makes great leaders human.

I’m not one who idolises Steve Jobs or Richard Branson from afar. For me very simplistically, people’s happiness at work, and therefore their ability to achieve is largely determined by their boss and their boss’s boss.

A great boss can turn an average job description into a fantastic experience. And I try to learn from all my great bosses and pick the best bits for the right set of circumstances.

That’s a very good question. For me, I have to create the environment for my team to deliver. That is my job.

Particularly now. Because I’m not a subject matter expert. I will be surrounded by my team and around this building by subject matter experts and they should always be better subject matter experts than I am.

The task for me is to create the right environment, first and foremost, for my team who report directly into me, and by proxy that environment should cascade throughout the organisation, and everyone should feel they have the ability to fulfil their potential, and with it the company’s potential.

If I can create that than it will be a job well done. Whether that classifies me as a situational leader, an alpha leader, a beta leader, or this that and the other type of leader. I am completely relaxed by whatever label people want to put on my leadership. It’s not the label that counts but the culture and result we achieve together.

For me the key thing is that I provide the right stimulation, support, challenges, opportunities and way of thinking, so the team and company can fulfil their potential together.