„« Maintenance and growth of customer base and sales margins.

„« Survival and development under intense competition in a small market.

„« Providing products which suitable and consumable to the Australian market.

These specific environmental impacts do not occur in isolation. Nissan's new hierarchy from Renault is demanding strong performance across the board, having invested hundreds of millions of dollars acquiring Nissan and developing new products. Furthermore Nissan Australia lacks the say of larger markets such as the United States and Europe, in determining product pricing, availability and specification.

With a raft of new models on the way

Holden, Ford and Mitsubishi enjoy large Australian Production and Management bases, Nissan must ensure that its fully imported product caters best to the needs of Australian consumers. Being a fully imported product, and with Australia a relatively small market, Nissan Australia will find it hard to get support for any major product modifications unless these could also be applied to US and European models.

Australia is a small market for multinational car companies. This being said, Australian car buyers enjoy more choice than ever in an industry that is becoming increasingly competitive. The past 10 years have seen rapid growth of competition in the Australian car market. South East Asian vehicle producers (Daewoo, Hyundai, Proton etc) have emerged. This combined with huge multinational vehicle producers such as Volkswagen, Alfa Romeo, Renault (Nissan's parent company) and Rover putting big money behind re-establishment of their product and dealer networks in Australia has resulted in stiffer competition in the Australian car industry. Meanwhile other competitors such as Mitsubishi, Ford and Holden are looking to sure up local brand loyalty and better sales margins through investment in local production.

„« Exploration of export markets: The current rate of the Australian dollar provides an ideal platform for low cost vehicle exports to markets such as the US and Europe. Ford, Holden and Mitsubishi already developing strong export markets for locally produced vehicles.

Theory on international business sees the so called ¥six forms of separation' as the major obstacle to a successful international business. John Ries from the University of British Columbia sees differences in political situations, natural environments, currency and language differences and information separation combining with physical distances to make multi-national production and distribution of products very challenging (http://pacific.commerce.ubc.ca/john/bab.htm, accessed 25/8/2002). This report will examine these effects of separation on the Australian division of car manufacturer Nissan. At present, Nissan is a French owned Japanese company with a Brazilian CEO. This report will analyse the key environmental influences on Nissan Australia and the problems that these environmental factors pose. It will further examine how Nissan Australia is dealing with major changes in products and management that are filtering down from its Tokyo headquarters. and propose alternative solutions and theoretical recommendations.

Deans, A. 2002, ¥Code Z', The Bulletin, August pp 42-43.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Nissan Australia, Leon Daphne, Australians Nissan, HQ Nissan, Nissan HQ, British Columbia, Carlos Ghosn, Renault Deans, Nissan Corporation, Competitors Australia, nissan australia, local production, australian car, nissan headquarters, nissan hq, parent company, deans 2002, establishment local production, specific environmental, australian market, establishment local, specific environmental impacts, australian car market, parent company renault, market nissan australia,
Approximate Word count = 1764
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)