The main values for David Thomas, President Volvo Car Russia, are respect for people and caring about security - that are the values that are important within Volvo company since 1927. It is really Swedish, really democratic.
1. What are the most important values for you?
I think it's respect for the individual and the service that we're trying to illustrate it. And everybody in the organization has his own explanation of value, and I think it's recognized within the organization. It's also a very Volvo value I have to say, Volvo is a very democratic company, and that carries some challenges because if you are a democratic company you also have to listen to the organization. And that's not always what you want to hear as a leader because you have already made up your own mind. But I think it's very important to give people this opportunity to input into the organization. But you simply cannot run the organization based on everybody's view, you have to make decisions but again making sure that people feel involved and empowered that they are part of the organization, and they are the important part of the organization. That's the way you get the best out of people.
2. What particularly do you do?
You have to make tough decisions about people in many occasions, but that doesn't stop you from the respecting the individual, you're making sure that people's input is taken into account even if you think it's not the right input. When you take action that affect people individually, you try to do it in the way that you respect them individually even the job they are doing may not have the job within the organization or the way they are doing the their job may not have the future in the organization. But that doesn't devalue them as individuals, it's just not right for the organization. What I do is implementing those tough decisions in a human way because it's not about being soft about decision making or the people in the organization, but you make sure that you respect them and they can walk away from the organization, and that's fundamental for me and for the organization broadly, it's something that you notice within the whole organization.
3. Tough decisions are very difficult to be made. How do you come along with it?
You should be very careful of doing it and insure the individual that he can move on knowing that their ability to earn money in the future is down or their qualities but not what the organization has decided about it. Our ability to earn money for our families isn't based on the job that our organization pays us to do in the particular moment in time. It's based on our skills and our experience and those skills and experience will work out in other organization. And you have to encourage that mindset when you have to implement very difficult decisions. I'm sure that around Russian industry and around Russian business during the last year a lot of people had to make those decisions. And it's awful that many people were affected by it, and it's a very tough process to get through. But I think that people come to make sure that you give them self-respect, and it's easy to say to the individual when you're telling them it but they need some help through it as well because this transition is difficult for every individual too.
4. How do you manage with the tough decisions when you have to stop producing any kind of product?
That's a classic issue within our industry and within our brand. Before Volvo I worked for Volkswagen and Citroen and I remember the Volkswagen customers before the new Beetle came out and they didn't understand why we didn't produce the old Beetle any more instead of the new one and in it was still being made. It's the product that gets a lot of loyalty from customers but you have to make commercial decisions on that. A car business that doesn't make commercial decisions doesn't stay a car business any more, and that's true for any industry. I think there's another level before that, you always have to look at your products and understand how they perform in the market, whether the price and the volume targets are right. And that require some tough decisions as well in terms of how you position your product and if the price is ok in regards of competition and the price. And I think it's an ongoing process within any business.
5. What is the most important issue you're faced with right now?
I think for me at this stage it's insuring that we go into 2010 where the industry see the same size of market and we should make sure that Volvo has a better share of that market. That's a big challenge in terms of turn the business round and gaining the maintain that we had in previous years but didn't have in 2009. There're a lot of issues about the pricing and the volume, but a lot of that is about motivation of the team and motivation of the dealers because you need to do that in terms of the belief of the brand and belief of the organization going forward. That's No 1 in my mind at the moment.
6. What is the business model of your company?
We bring in cars and parts from our parent company from Sweden, then we sell those cars and parts to dealers who in their turn sell them to the customers. The dealers also sell service and they keep in touch with the customers and they in two or three years' time will come back and buy another car.
7. What is the uniqueness of Volvo?
The uniqueness of Volvo is in the absolute dedication to its product and its safety, to the environment and quality. The uniqueness of the company is in its Swedishness, in spite of being American for the last ten years, and we're a Swedish company not only because we make cars in Sweden, we're Swedish by culture - here come out the democracy and the respect for the individual. And I think that we're a premium brand, but alternatively premium because we have different set of values.
