Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
EP 8: Jorge Mussi: Navigating Brazil, Sweden, and USA with Toyota and Volvo
19 Plays2 days ago
The Auto Ethnographer, John Stech, has a conversation with Jorge Mussi, the General Manager of Aftersales and the Customer Services Division at Toyota do Brasil about his journey from his native Brazil to Sweden and the United States and back to Brazil. He tells his story that begins with Volvo and is currently evolving at Toyota.
Jorge’s automotive journey started with Volvo Truck & Bus in the early 1990s. For his love of cars, he moved over to Volvo’s passenger car division where he experienced several historical shifts of Brazilian trade policy regarding car imports. He recounts how this impacted the company and how Brazilian and Swedish management styles worked together in these challenging periods.
Taking an opportunity to live and work in Sweden at Volvo’s headquarters, he relocated to Gothenburg, eventually becoming a Swedish citizen. Jorge discusses how he had to adapt to local culture, even learning proficient Swedish after only four months. He discusses the Swedish decision-making process and how it actually takes place.
Jorge returned to Brazil as Volvo Car Brazil’s Director of Aftersales and Head of Government Affairs. He realized his advantages in running these operations having learned the inner workings of the headquarters in Sweden.
Another opportunity lay around the corner as Jorge joined Volvo Car Americas team in the United States as Director of Aftersales and Customer Services overseeing over 20 markets in Latin America, plus Canada. Here he was faced with the many nuanced differences across Latin American countries. They have one common language (or do they?) but many different cultural attributes.
Upon his return to Brazil, Jorge joined Toyota do Brasil during a restructuring and realignment of the company’s strategy. However, it was his first time working within a Japanese management philosophy. He discusses how he learned and adapted to this new style of business.
For more information on The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com
Recommended
Transcript
Global Stability: Sweden vs. Latin America
00:00:00
Speaker
It's not not like the roller coaster that we have in Latin America, where one day everything's fine and the other day everything's terrible. In those countries like Sweden, Europe, States, everything is very stable and planned.
Podcast Introduction by John Steck
00:00:14
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Auto Ethnographer. I'm John Steck, your host on this journey. We travel the globe to bring you stories about culture and the global automotive industry. Fasten your seatbelt and let's get started.
Meet Jorge Busi: From Volvo to Toyota
00:00:27
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Auto Ethnographer. Today we traveled across the globe to Brazil, Sao Paulo to be precise. We have a fantastic guest on the program today, Jorge Busi.
00:00:40
Speaker
He is the general manager responsible for the customer service or after sales at Toyota in Brazil. responsible for over 300 dealers and all of the customer service activities that occur across this very large 2 in a 20 million inhabited country.
00:01:03
Speaker
George had previously before joining Toyota, in fact, exactly four years ago as we're recording this, he had a long career with Volvo cars, as well as Volvo construction equipment and trucks.
00:01:19
Speaker
He started about 32 years ago in Brazil with Volvo cars and then transitioned over to Volvo truck and construction equipment for a very interesting reason, which he'll walk through in a few moments.
00:01:35
Speaker
His journeys then took him over to Sweden, where he spent several years working in Sweden.
Living in Sweden: Citizenship and Culture
00:01:41
Speaker
and fact In fact, he's been picking up Swedish citizenship. He then headed back to Brazil, where he was responsible for customer service for the Brazilian market for Volvo cars.
00:01:53
Speaker
And ultimately then went to the United States for a second foreign assignment, where he then took on the responsibility for after sales across the entire Latin American market, as well as the Canadian market for customer service Volvo cars.
Return to Brazil and the Automotive Industry
00:02:10
Speaker
He headed back down to Brazil about five years ago, just about the time that COVID took over the planet. ah But then, as I mentioned, he joined Toyota for exactly four years ago.
00:02:22
Speaker
With that, I would love to introduce George Mussi. George, welcome to the program. Thank you so much, John. It's really, really um and big pleasure to be here with you. Well, my story starts back in 1992, John, when I joined Volvo Cars in Brazil after the Brazilian government decided to open up the country or the market for the importation of cars, because until then it was forbidden to um ah import cars in Brazil. So there was basically the local national industry and this industry was made of a group called a Big Four.
00:03:05
Speaker
There was only Ford, Volkswagen, General Motors and Fiat. That was it. That was all that the Brazilian customers could choose. But then the Brazilian president, ah there there just ah elect Mr. Collor de Melo, he ah drove a Ferrari here at Fiat's test track down in Brazil here in the Minas Gerais.
00:03:32
Speaker
And when he did that, he said, our cars, our national cars, they look like carriages.
Volvo's Expansion into Brazil
00:03:38
Speaker
And then they took the decision to open a up for the importation of cars. And when that happened, the market was flooded by um new imported brands that we didn't even know existed.
00:03:50
Speaker
And that was the moment, back in 1992, when Volvo Cars decided to establish itself in Brazil. The Volvo operations for trucks was already established here since 1977 with a factory for um manufacturing trucks and buses, right?
00:04:12
Speaker
But to cars, no. So ah the importation of Volvo cars started back in 1992. And when the company, the the national sales company was being that structured here, I was the third employee to be hired to work as a support technician.
00:04:32
Speaker
I mean, I would be responsible back then for supporting ah the dealer network to take care of the products. when Whenever there was a problem, I was the last resource to solve the problem and help the dealer network to solve it.
00:04:49
Speaker
Basically, I was hired back then because i was just getting graduated on electronics engineering. And ah at the time, the Volvo products were really so much advanced it for the status of the Brazilian market that was so closed with only four brands that they were no longer hiring people with um ah graduation or or education.
00:05:18
Speaker
in ah mechanics. Instead they wanted ah people from electronics to learn the mechanics in the daily operations or the by doing right. So that's ah how I joined Volvo.
00:05:30
Speaker
I came from um my internship at a ah company which was respond was was operating ah mainframes and the computer terminals and I had a doctor's suitcase where I had ah computer parts inside and I would go to the yeah customers to fix their computers or their tape units.
00:05:52
Speaker
Quite a jump though into automotive from there. I can understand the the electronics component of that and and then and how advanced the cars must have seemed versus what was locally available on the on the market.
00:06:08
Speaker
But the catch is that i used to, i used to um my my hobby was to to to mess with cars. So I was that kind of person that after work hours would go and totally dismantle my my own car, dismantle the engine.
00:06:26
Speaker
upgrade turbocharge it, from normally aspirated I transformed it into a turbocharged engine and so on. So like I had the experience of the mechanical stuff from the ah from my my own experience, right?
00:06:41
Speaker
But the education basically came ah ah with the electronics then. So you spent a number of years working on the more technical customer service side with Volvo cars, but then you had that transition to the trucks and the um construction equipment.
00:07:00
Speaker
Can you tell a little bit the story, how what happened to passenger cars and the the market in Brazil? Because there was really quite an interesting twist in the nineteen ninety s We started back in 1992 and then I was responsible first as a support and repair technician to help the network.
00:07:17
Speaker
But as the years gone by, I started to be responsible also for the processing the warranty cases.
Career Development: From Warranty to Training
00:07:25
Speaker
Back then I would send the warranty ah forms to Sweden to be... yeah ah processed and then they would send or they would reimburse Volvo Cars Brazil on the amount of money that we would have spent on warranty.
00:07:39
Speaker
Then I took care also of the parts supply, the parts warehouse and so on. And that was it. And and then I became a a training instructor back in 1995 because I had the collected so much knowledge along from 1992 up to 1995 that I had to start teaching or being used as a trainer on the classroom in order to ah train the DITR network.
00:08:04
Speaker
But then, um Brazil is not exactly a very stable country. And then, ah back then, we were coming we were recovering from years of high inflation.
00:08:17
Speaker
And um the yeah Brazilian government, at that year, 1996, approximately, they noticed that the yeah trade balance in Brazil was ah in a tremendous deficit.
00:08:32
Speaker
So what happened is that they looked at the um ah imported the car market and of course after 20 years being unable to import any cars,
00:08:44
Speaker
The importation of cars was skyrocketing, affecting the trade balance. So back in 1996, they decided, oops, let's do something here. Let's increase the import taxes in 100%. went import taxes so seventy percent just overnight in order and the government did that in order to stop the importation of cars and i remember back then we had like two thousand cars already on the on the vessel going to brazil and when they would arrive in brazil they would have to pay double
00:09:19
Speaker
the taxes that they used to pay, which of course would affect their consumer consumer customer or the final price, the retail ah price for the cars, right? So the decision of the company was not very complex.
00:09:34
Speaker
There was an exception for that. The government also ah um said that okay let's do like this if you produce anything in brazil and you export for every dollar that is exported you can import one dollar without paying the extra the increase of taxes And then Volvo Cars decided, oops, wait a minute, there is an operation already established in Brazil for trucks and buses, which is exporting, back then they were exporting trucks, ah trucks, cabins, and so on to Europe, because they would use the cabins.
00:10:14
Speaker
that were made in Brazil to produce trucks over there. And let's take advantage of those exports to import cars without paying the extra taxes. So the decision was very simple.
00:10:24
Speaker
Let's go and become a part of the Volvo Trucks Group. And that was it back in 1996. um We became a part of the Volvo Trucks Group in Brazil.
00:10:36
Speaker
And on my side, what happened was that as I was ah the yeah technical trainer or the trainer responsible for training the whole dinner network, I would be allocated inside the yeah Volvo Trucks business in the training department.
00:10:52
Speaker
But they train the training department at the Volvo Trucks business would not only do trainings for cars. They would do training for cars, buses, construction equipment, trucks,
00:11:03
Speaker
and for me becoming a trainer there, I would have to go and train people on all those four products. So um with that I had the experience of working for probably almost all divisions of the Volvo Group in one way or we or another except for Volvo Finance Services.
00:11:24
Speaker
When I moved over there I had to work with all those products And then from 1996 up to 1999, I worked basically as a trainer and then I became the training manager for Latin America.
Volvo's Organizational Changes in 1999
00:11:38
Speaker
But then in 1999, there was another twist. The company was sold to Ford Motor Company, Volvo Cars. And we, of course, we had to separate from the Volvo Group.
00:11:52
Speaker
and the company had to move over to Sao Paulo, where Ford Motor Company was based back then. But um I decided to stay Volvo Group in Curitiba back then and work with the Volvo construction equipment business.
00:12:11
Speaker
But after one year working for Volvo construction equipment, I realized that I still had gasoline on my veins, on my blood. And luckily, I had the chance back in in July 2020, sorry, 2000, July 2000, I had the chance to go back to Volvo cars and continue with them, ah now based off from São Paulo, right?
00:12:41
Speaker
ah where I had the opportunity to go back to my old job, which was a training manager and also a support and a repair technician, right, to the whole Brazilian network.
00:12:53
Speaker
Until 2002, when I was invited by the Swedish organization to move to Sweden and become a trainer over there. So you worked for really a ah decade for Volvo, for ah a Swedish organization and in Brazil.
00:13:11
Speaker
How did you find the matchup you know between ah yourself, ah the Brazilian culture, and then working for ah the Swedish? Brazil is a country of
Cultural Adaptation: Curitiba vs. Sweden
00:13:22
Speaker
many contrasts.
00:13:23
Speaker
And one of them that you will find if you come over here, is how the Brazilian, um let's say, the Brazilian colonization or settlement was established.
00:13:37
Speaker
ah Basically, I was born in Curitiba, which is a very, I would say, ah very... European-based immigration city, if you know what I mean.
00:13:49
Speaker
be Made up basically of Germans, Polish, um Italians, not not many Italians, I would say it's most most of of them, of the immigrants that built up Curitiba, are ah German and Polish immigrants, right?
00:14:07
Speaker
And i was born there, I myself, I am also, ah my my mother was my mother and my grandfather, they were from Polish descent, um and on my on my mother's side, her father was German.
00:14:24
Speaker
So, um ah based on that, First of all, the culture in Curitiba was very much like European, so to speak, right?
00:14:37
Speaker
Besides, Curitiba is located, despite being in Brazil, is located at 1000 meters over at the sea level, so it's probably the one of the coldest cities in Brazil for the Brazilian standards, which means also the weather is similar to what you find sometimes in Europe.
00:14:56
Speaker
So the whole culture, and I don't know if that's why Volvo chose Curitiba to be the yeah the the the place for their trucks factory.
00:15:08
Speaker
And when they established themselves there back in 1977, they very strong connection with the city. they have they had a very strong connection with the city Probably because of the culture of the city, which it was very much connected to to Europe, which was not hard, but also because they provided the local people with lots of opportunities for economical development and for jobs, right?
00:15:35
Speaker
So I didn't find it difficult at at all to join Volvo back then. For me, the culture was so natural that I didn't feel the, let's say, the the cultural clash that you usually would.
00:15:53
Speaker
It's interesting because i think 99% of people probably, when they think of Brazil, they they think of Rio de Janeiro, they think of beaches, they think of sand and and palm trees.
00:16:05
Speaker
They certainly don't think of a thousand meters above sea level, cold weather, and I believe it even snows in Curitiba, if I'm not mistaken. Yes, well, not regularly, but I remember when I was three years old, ah being in the snow, and actually I was very like cozy and warm in my bed, and my parents, they took me off of my bed to take me out to take a picture in the snow outside, which was not very pleasant.
00:16:35
Speaker
ah if you know Well, we you you and I, we are used to snow because we lived in ah cold countries, right? So this was actually perfect training for you to then eventually move yourself and your family over to Sweden in the early 2000s. Can you tell us how that was? I mean, that was certainly a societal difference working and living in Sweden versus Brazil, even even if Curitiba was more European oriented. I'm sure there were some some major changes that you had to encounter.
00:17:08
Speaker
When we speak about um the culture itself, of course we had to adapt ourselves because one thing is working for a Swedish company in Brazil, another thing is working for a Swedish company in Sweden, where you have to get integrated to the society, to well so the whole to whole new lifestyle, I would say.
00:17:29
Speaker
But um one of the most difficult things, I would say, was to get adapted to the darkness.
Challenges of Sweden's Winters and Language
00:17:36
Speaker
Because ah and that is something that I never experienced before, right?
00:17:42
Speaker
During wintertime, you go to work at 7.30, 8 o'clock in morning, it's eight o'clock in the morning it's dark and when you go back home at 5 o'clock in in the afternoon, it's dark because the sun rises at 9, 9.30 and goes down by 2.30, 3 o'clock. So it's, I mean, this is one of the things that you get have to get used.
00:18:05
Speaker
And that is something that you have to battle sometimes because in your mind it can be depressing. Not for me because, of course, I had the yeah opportunity to get in contact with my working colleagues during the day.
00:18:22
Speaker
And of course, during the day you go and have lunch with your colleagues and so on. But if you stay home, it's impossible because, of course, you never see the sunlight.
00:18:33
Speaker
Physically, that's ah and and and psychologically, that's a huge challenge. I experienced the same living in Moscow for seven years, having the same type of daylight hours. Of course, in the summer, it's the opposite.
00:18:46
Speaker
It feels like you, it feels like you never lose the daylight. I had to put the blinds on my windows at home in Sweden because in the summer the sun goes down by like what 10 30 in the evening or even sometimes like 11 o'clock but the sun is up again like 2 30 3 o'clock in the morning The office environment, ah you know, Swedish culture, I believe there's a lot of consensus that happens in Sweden, correct?
00:19:20
Speaker
you You have a lot of consensus management. You get together group of people who are tasked with a particular project or decision-making, and they do that on a consensus basis.
00:19:31
Speaker
Is that from what do you had in Brazil? ah Is that a change for you to get into this type of a consensus management? That was a big change for me. Actually, I learned in Sweden that the decisions are made in the coffee machine, not in the meeting.
00:19:47
Speaker
The meeting is just a way to, let's say, officialize conversations and all the work that was done ah when you had some time talking to the people and discussing and planning ahead.
00:20:04
Speaker
ah So basically the yeah the consensus was established when you had all those conversations, when you had all those meetings.
00:20:15
Speaker
These are invisible things. that you cannot imagine. And this is only possible to learn if you live over there and if you get integrated in this society, right? When I moved over to Sweden, I moved in November 2023, then and then i ah We had the ah visitors coming from all over the world, right?
00:20:39
Speaker
And for that reason, ah the people at the office would speak in English with me for a few weeks until the visitors were gone by the end of December.
00:20:49
Speaker
But from December, they started speaking to me only in Swedish. And... Perhaps that was the best thing that happened to me because I started an immersion in the Swedish language back in December 2023.
00:21:06
Speaker
After four months, I was speaking Swedish already. and when you speak the local language then you get totally integrated into the decision making the society and everything i mean i can remember a lot of expats that were living in sweden and after 10 years they wouldn't be able to speak well of course they They knew how to say hello and goodbye in Swedish, but they were basically speaking English. They never got ah like fluent in in Swedish.
00:21:43
Speaker
Of course, I understand that the speed of things is different. When you go there in a managerial position, you have to take decisions. and You don't have to learn. You don't have time to learn the language. You just have to take decisions and use your English skills and so on.
00:21:56
Speaker
But definitely getting... ah ah or learning the local language is a tremendous advantage for your professional and personal development and also the decision making. I think that was what helped me a lot.
00:22:13
Speaker
Taking a loop back just to to um kind of close the topic, What is the Brazilian decision-making
Decision-Making: Brazilian Hierarchy vs. Swedish Consensus
00:22:21
Speaker
style? Is it more top-down top down or how how does that work in Brazil?
00:22:27
Speaker
In contrast, what do you experience in Sweden? It shifts from company to company. um When I was working for Volvo in Brazil, ah it was more like a consensus, but the boss had the final decision.
00:22:42
Speaker
Now in Toyota, the boss has this decision. I mean, it's very much hierarchical, right? And it's a way that the things work, like based on how the culture works.
00:22:56
Speaker
So for me, it was much more of a discussion of a consensus in Sweden than it was in Brazil. to a certain degree, Volvo did actually bring some of that consensus decision making to Brazil as well, to to a certain extent, but but still matched up to the to the local culture.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yes, exactly. And I believe that the local culture ah here, I don't know, maybe you you know that, or John, by experience, probably this culture of ah the boss taking the decision probably similar to the United States also.
00:23:29
Speaker
You quite considerable time, actually, in in in Sweden, where you assimilated quite a bit. And it's impressive if you learned the language within the first four months, ah you were certainly quite fluent by the end of of your period of time in Sweden.
00:23:44
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah. I was o so very much, I would say, integrated or I felt a so Swedish that I applied for the Swedish citizen citizenship. After five years living in Sweden, you can apply for the Swedish citizenency c citizenship.
00:24:03
Speaker
I did that and I was approved. And Sweden is very these are very straightforward council are a very a very... um is a country where it's very simple to deal with things, right?
00:24:16
Speaker
I just downloaded the forms from the um the the immigration website, fill it in, send my Brazilian passport, and then they ah check everything and see if I had lived in Sweden for five years, my level of knowledge of the Swedish culture and so on.
00:24:34
Speaker
And then they send me back, ah like just like a certificate, a diploma, here is your citizenship. And that was it. It seems actually really quite so simple, um not not so bureaucratic.
00:24:46
Speaker
Yeah, it it is it seems that it's simple, but all the work that is behind that happened for five years is is much more complicated, right?
00:24:57
Speaker
But then returned ultimately back to Brazil.
Career Advancement and Market Fluctuations in Brazil
00:25:00
Speaker
but Was that something that you expected? or Were you planning to return to Brazil? Or was that something that was a little bit more unexpected? It just kind of happened from ah decision at the company?
00:25:12
Speaker
no no um as as as i told you well i moved back in so i'm back in 2003 i moved over to sweden uh should be uh to to restart my career let's say like this right uh as a trainer and then i worked my way up from a trainer to a team leader of the trainers then to a manager of the technical training then manager of the commercial training and ultimately um the manager of the business development training and then when i was at that position um one fine day in december a swedish guy that used to work with me as an expat when we were living in brazil he calls me and says george
00:25:59
Speaker
You ever thought about going back to Brazil, moving back to Brazil? Well, i i was i had been living in Sweden for almost 10 years already, right? And then it never crossed my mind to to move back to Brazil.
00:26:12
Speaker
But the thing was, I was the manager of the business development department. as I told you, and things,
00:26:24
Speaker
I mean, this is one thing this is one thing that we have to understand when we talk about these developed cultures, developed countries. Everything has a time to happen. Nothing happens.
00:26:36
Speaker
It's not not like the roller coaster that we have in Latin America, where one day everything is fine and the other day everything is terrible. In those countries like Sweden, Europe, States, everything is very stable and planned.
00:26:50
Speaker
And from if you if we translate it into my career story, back then in 2011, I was the manager of the business development training.
00:27:02
Speaker
I looked at my boss. My boss was the director. And he was like 50. fifty Back then, I was 38 years old. My boss was already 55. And he told me, oh, this is probably the last my last position before I get retired in five years and so on.
00:27:20
Speaker
And I said, my God, how many how much will I wait until my my career develops, right? And then this call that I got from this Swedish guy who worked with me asking me to return to Brazil and more than that the position in Brazil was to be the director offer the after sales customer service department in Brazil was the chance that I had to become a director only being 38 years old.
00:27:48
Speaker
I mean i would ah take a step that would take me at least five or ten years in Sweden. So I did that. I moved back to Brazil because this was a leap, a jump in time for me. It's like jumping into the future, 10 years ahead to be the director of the customer service and after sales area here in Brazil.
00:28:12
Speaker
And that was basically the decision. not Not much to think about. how much of a shock was it to return back when it was not really a planned, you know, a planned decision?
00:28:25
Speaker
You had to re-acclimate and not to mention the fact that you ended up now in Sao Paulo, which culturally is also quite different from Curitiba. When I moved back here, the roller coaster starts again.
00:28:40
Speaker
I moved over to Brazil, the automotive market here was booming, there was a lot of Chinese companies coming in, the import market the the imported cars market was going through the roof again, and after six, seven, eight months here, guess what happens again?
00:29:00
Speaker
the Brazilian government raises the taxing import taxes again in order to stop the importation of Chinese cars. And then they put a quota system.
00:29:11
Speaker
And probably you remember from the time when we worked together that we were limited to sell an average of the last three years. And then we had to invest in r and d here in Brazil in order to get tax exemption benefits. It was a very complex.
00:29:29
Speaker
But again, i left a very stable plan country, a very nice ah standard of living economy to move over to the rural roller coaster again.
00:29:40
Speaker
But it was sunny, at least, and it never it's it never snows. So, but yeah, it it it was it was kind of a a shock to to move back. But again, I took on the ah challenge, and this was part of the being here again.
00:29:55
Speaker
Once you take those decisions, you decide that you're gonna do your best. And I did my best again here. When I came here, Volvo was... According to J.D. Power, Volvo was like the the the the worst company in the in customer satisfaction.
00:30:15
Speaker
And after one, two years of implementation of the lean manufacturing process, um among other things here, we yeah put Volvo in the first place of customer satisfaction and we stayed over there.
00:30:33
Speaker
uh for five consecutive years which was uh a very much which was ah a great thing to do because of course we uh we gave the the volvo brazilian customers um what you call it solidity in the operations because with the customer service or the after sales operations that were were were established here before um it was not that good.
00:31:01
Speaker
The customers were not buying cars because they didn't have the support that they needed. And once we put everything in its place and everything worked as it should be, um also the sales for Volvo started to go through the roof again.
00:31:17
Speaker
After spending ah almost a decade in in Sweden, you must have brought something back to Brazil that was able to you know be an advantage for you in Volvo Car Brazil.
00:31:33
Speaker
is there Is there anything that you noticed that you brought back that you were able to communicate better with the but the ah home office in Sweden or or any other um lessons that you learned?
00:31:48
Speaker
Actually everything, John, everything that I brought back from Sweden made it possible to improve the Brazilian operations. Due to my relationship and knowledge with the head office in Sweden, it was very much like straightforward to decide on improvements on the parts importation logistics get parts very quickly here to supply our dealers.
00:32:13
Speaker
ah Technically speaking, homologation of products to get information in Sweden since I knew the departments, it was very easy to get information, put it here and get our products certified because Brazil requires local certification. They don't just accept the European certification to sell cars here. They require that the products are locally certified here.
00:32:36
Speaker
So ah everything that I learned in Sweden in one way or another made the business much easier here. And especially when it comes to customer satisfaction, ah back in Sweden I was part of the group who created the yeah Volvo Personal Technicians or the Volvo Personal Service which was actually based on the Toyota ah philosophy of the lean production system.
00:33:01
Speaker
And we did that, we created that back in Sweden, and then I brought it also to Brazil, which made it very easy to implement here. And since I had the channels or the communication with Sweden, it was very nice and easy.
00:33:14
Speaker
to bring the Swedish instructors, the Swedish structure from there to Brazil, to make Brazil the first country that became ah certified with that its 100% of the network certified in this lean production system in the workshops, which made it very quick to repair the cars and thus achieve number one satisfaction for on on the after sales.
00:33:41
Speaker
It sounds like and that you brought back the organization in Brazil, having those connections, contact and also understanding, you know, how to talk to the team back in Sweden, right? How to convince them for support and, you know, how to appeal to them for that assistance.
00:34:00
Speaker
So you also simultaneously were also responsible for the government relations, as I remember in that role.
00:34:11
Speaker
That must have been something interesting as well, because you described a, let's say, somewhat simple simple passport and citizenship process in Brazil. ah Excuse me.
00:34:22
Speaker
we But ah in Brazil, you said it's like a roller coaster and decisions are taken quickly by the government. That must have been quite a challenging role as well to now have to also manage those relationships with the government and some of the regulations and so on that govern the automotive industry.
00:34:42
Speaker
when I came back to Brazil and there was this ah increase in import taxes requiring us to invest in our research and development, ah having the quotas to import cars and so on. All of that required a lot of contact with the Brazilian government in order to communicate well with them and get all the approvals for the business that we had.
00:35:03
Speaker
And that's when the president of the, the by then president of the company came to me and said, hey, what about besides the the chair of director of customer service, you take the the chair of director of government affairs also.
00:35:19
Speaker
And I said, yeah, basically the reason was that it required so much technical knowledge to talk with the government in order to establish what would be the future politics for policies for ah cars safety,
00:35:37
Speaker
ah maybe and also ah emissions, fuel consumption and so on, that each and every company in Brazil would the need to have a person responsible in charge for the government efforts.
00:35:52
Speaker
And that falls on me because of all the technical stuff. And then I conducted that for also for almost five, six years, ah constantly traveling to the district capital here, Brasilia, in order to meet with ministers, with the technical people responsible for setting up the legislation and the requirements for the automotive industry.
00:36:17
Speaker
And I'm quite proud to say that some of the suggestions that I made back then representing Volvo in terms of safety equipment today are a standard of the Brazilian automotive production because we suggest them um many years ago. oha Like today, ah it's compulsory here in Brazil to have airbags, ABS brakes, um among other ah ah driving assistance items that we discussed and suggested back then.
00:36:55
Speaker
A few years later, in I believe it was 2017, looking at your at your history, um somebody came along, me, and asked whether you might be interested in taking on a completely different role, which was to be the director of after sales across all of Latin America and and Canada.
00:37:18
Speaker
And this would require, of course, then moving your family to the United States. the office was located just outside of New York City. How was that? um that That was ah a big change in and of
Transition to the US: Cultural Insights
00:37:31
Speaker
itself. can Can you talk a little bit about your transition to the United States?
00:37:35
Speaker
I'm glad to say that it was much closer to culturally speaking, much closer to the Brazilian culture than it was when I moved to Sweden. um The effect of ah getting to live in the States was much easier because of the openness of the people.
00:37:54
Speaker
I mean, it's a totally different way of speaking with people. I mean, and in Sweden, you go shoot the yeah ah to the grocery store and did the...
00:38:07
Speaker
the the cashier would barely look at you or talk to you and in the states you go to the grocery store or you go to the what you call it drugstore the pharmacy and they even ask if you want more medication or how do you do and stuff like that so They are very like open to talk.
00:38:29
Speaker
So the atmosphere was completely different. Besides, the United States united states is a much more open country. I mean, you have much more like many many more options for like going and visiting cultural stuff.
00:38:48
Speaker
and doing a very funny things with your family. So, I mean, it was much easier for us to move from Brazil to the States than it was in the beginning to Sweden.
00:39:02
Speaker
How did you find work in the office? um again, a different environment, right? You started in Brazil, you have a more Brazilian leaning work style in Sweden, or really in the heart of the company with the Swedish work style.
00:39:19
Speaker
Now you're in the United States, you have a Swedish brand. How was that? did Did you notice any, you know, ah idiosyncrasies or unusual ways of working in the in the US?
00:39:31
Speaker
In the US, what um for me the most impressive is how strong the market and the company was in the US. I mean, and i remember that from ah the time when I was working in Sweden, we we used to produce the the training materials in Sweden and we translated them to English and we even asked if the Americas wanted us in Sweden to produce the materials in American English.
00:40:02
Speaker
We did that. We created only the American English, separated from the British English when we produced the material. And still, the Americans rewrite every single book that we produced.
00:40:15
Speaker
So, the most impressive thing for me when I moved into the United States is that they do their stuff. They don't just absorb things that come from Sweden or from abroad.
00:40:30
Speaker
They will do everything their style. And it shows how strong the market is because, of course, back then, I believe that when ah you and I, we worked there, ah this the States was the biggest market in the world with China in second place, right?
00:40:48
Speaker
But then after some years, China took over as as the big biggest market for Volvo. But I mean... due to the volume and the history of Volvo cars being the United States for so many years they had such a ah for me they had the conditions to decide on their own what to do or what not to do of course sometimes you have to be aligned with Sweden and so on but it was much more of ah an independent country within the Volvo organization
00:41:20
Speaker
In Brazil, we had to strictly follow the Swedish guidelines, while in the States, you sort of make your guidelines.
00:41:30
Speaker
Did you find that now working in the US in this regional office, right, the America's office, where you know from Canada down to Argentina, everything was being run out of this this office outside of New York.
00:41:46
Speaker
Did you find that there was now leverage to be able to make more adaptation to some of the other markets as well? So the U.S. was often driving the requirements, as you said.
00:41:58
Speaker
Did you find then that the Americas was able to leverage that and ah do do more adaptation, for example, for Brazil or for Canada, some of the biggest markets in the hemisphere?
00:42:09
Speaker
We were able there because of course you, John, you had the the yeah the responsibility to deliver the results and together we will discuss and set up the guidelines for the whole Latin America and Canada, right?
00:42:23
Speaker
So I remember when we used to discuss the yeah the budget for the yeah following year. that we would need to generate X revenue, X profit, and so on.
00:42:35
Speaker
And based on that, we would take the decision to go and talk to the markets and say, look, we need this and this and this, and this is your target. Let's work together here. What are the actions you're going to do in order to achieve the results?
00:42:48
Speaker
But the results that we must achieve is that. It was certainly a challenge to... to manage or lead across this patchwork of of countries. you know That brings up another interesting question for me, for you.
00:43:02
Speaker
ah So you worked in Brazil, you are Brazilian.
Navigating Latin American Cultures
00:43:07
Speaker
And I think to many people, there's a kind of homogeneous feeling about Latin America, right? But the countries are vastly different from each other.
00:43:17
Speaker
Even the regions in Brazil are are very different from each other, Curitiba to Sao Paulo. How was it to work across Latin America now? Because the Mexicans are very different from the Chileans, who are very different from the Brazilians and the Argentinians.
00:43:32
Speaker
dealing with Mexico, it's one kind of culture, you go there and just as an example, um you don't eat lunch at noon.
00:43:47
Speaker
At noon you eat a very small amount of food or sort of a very small, I don't know, brunch or something, and then you will eat your lunch much later on like 2, 3, 4 o'clock in the afternoon.
00:44:03
Speaker
And while I was there, I was starving by midday, by 12 o'clock, because we are used to having the breakfast 8 in the morning and then lunch at 12 and then the dinner at 6. It was totally different, right?
00:44:19
Speaker
Besides, the way of thinking of Mexicans is different from the way of thinking of the Argentinians, which is different from the way of thinking of the Brazilians.
00:44:30
Speaker
And more than that, if you think that Brazil is the only country who speaks Portuguese in the whole Latin America, and then you have another 34 countries speaking Spanish, but with their own dialects, and even sometimes that the same word is not used in Argentina and in Mexico.
00:44:54
Speaker
I remember that the word for, um you know, but well, we all know guacamole is not the same word in Mexico and Argentina.
00:45:07
Speaker
It's different. And it means different kinds of fruits or even that. So it's, I mean, um of course, it's totally intelligible.
00:45:19
Speaker
yeah People will understand their the the Spanish from Mexico, from Argentina, from Colombia, although there are very interesting dialects and and accents, but we will manage somehow to to understand each other.
00:45:35
Speaker
But that's not the question. The question is that, for example, Argentinians, they are much more European-oriented, while the Mexicans, they are very close to the United States, and they think in a different way.
00:45:48
Speaker
So that was a challenge, but we overcome that by being flexible, but sometimes you have to be firm in the decisions that you take.
00:45:59
Speaker
And despite the fact that they think differently, we never tolerated um like behavior that deviated from the company's guidelines. So then at the end of this, you said this was a challenge really leading across these different cultures, but you tested yourself pretty significantly next.
00:46:20
Speaker
So at the conclusion of of this particular role with Volvo, you had the opportunity to join Toyota.
Joining Toyota during COVID-19
00:46:27
Speaker
And this this was for you a major cultural shift. You already alluded to it at the beginning of the podcast.
00:46:35
Speaker
Walk us through a little bit your experience of of going into the Toyota environment, the Japanese culture, which is of course vastly different. um And then interestingly, there is, as I remember, a very large Japanese population in Brazil.
00:46:52
Speaker
um is Is there any influence that plays into this mix um as well? The Japanese immigration to Brazil started more than 100 years ago.
00:47:04
Speaker
So Brazil has probably the best Japanese, the the biggest Japanese colony outside of Japan. Only here in São Paulo,
00:47:15
Speaker
There are more than 120,000 Japanese or descendants of ah Japanese living here, right? But of course they are spread all over the country.
00:47:28
Speaker
But here is, like so I would say, is the epicentrum of the Japanese based in Brazil. There is a a neighborhood here in São Paulo called Liberdade, which would be the equivalent of a Japanese and neighborhood. When you go there, you will find all those typical ah ah stores and even restaurants and food and so on.
00:47:52
Speaker
um But, I mean, and that's why perhaps when I when i started at Toyota, I found so many Brazilian Japanese working over there, right?
00:48:06
Speaker
um And speaking of that, of course, they know the culture. For me, it was very much different from the culture that I used to have, but also Toyota back then, when I joined them right in the middle of the ah COVID,
00:48:24
Speaker
The company was going through a transformation here in Brazil also so and this transformation required people with ah different experiences from outside the company to join the company to help the company adapt to the new times and That was basically why I was hired.
00:48:45
Speaker
I was bringing to Toyota more of an external ah culture in order to contribute to them to better adapt to the local market.
00:49:00
Speaker
And of course, think about delivering the results among a lot of other things. It was a really big shift in scale, right? a Volvo compared to Toyota in Brazil is is a completely different story.
00:49:16
Speaker
Can you talk a little bit about how that scale also impacted you? When I left Volvo we had 30, 31, 32 dealers. thirty thirty one thirty two dealers at Toyota we have dealers, so it's times more.
00:49:31
Speaker
we used to sell 5,000, 6,000 cars a year Volvo. We sell 200,000 cars a year at Toyota. The parts warehouse is... we we Actually, we just ah finished the new parts warehouse that we have been building for the last two years at Toyota.
00:49:55
Speaker
It's made of 55,000 square meters thousand square meters for storage of parts and the the parts warehouse at at volvo was rented and it was about 3500 square meters so the scale is totally different the amount of money that you deal with it the revenues the profit the volume The customer database, I mean the customer base we we have only for the last eight years, which is the base which we measure the the retention, customer retention at Toyota.
00:50:35
Speaker
We talk about 1.4 million customers. Well, that compared to Volvo is like... probably 20 times more or 30 times more I don't even know the number but it's it's much bigger so the scale is much bigger which means that I have a much bigger team also ah made of 360 people back at Volvo I had like probably 20 30 people something like that so the scale is totally totally different
00:51:11
Speaker
Ultimately, the the leadership there, I mean, you are a member of the leadership team.
Toyota's Decision-Making Style: Hoshin
00:51:16
Speaker
um Is there a lot of ah Japanese representation in the leadership team and the management leadership style? You mentioned earlier the consensus style. We talked about that in Sweden.
00:51:28
Speaker
I think you mentioned ah something more like the boss decides with Toyota. Can can you talk a little bit about the decision making processes there? Yeah, the direction is made by the bosses.
00:51:42
Speaker
And it's something that we called in the Japanese, it's called Hoshin. Hoshin means direction in Japanese. And in the beginning of the year, the CEO together with the presidents of the local companies here, they will make hush in, which is basically the direction, and they will point out to the company, this is the direction we go, we're gonna do this and this and that, we're gonna focus on that, and our focus will be to do this and this and that.
00:52:12
Speaker
And based on that, the Roshin is cascaded down to the organization. And then my boss will have Roshin based on his boss. I will have a Roshin based on the Roshin of my boss.
00:52:25
Speaker
And my organization will execute and deliver the Roshin that we agreed upon. So basically, that's how it works. Did you find this... unusual to adapt to I didn't find it very difficult because um in the end ah the company is the whole company is working towards only one direction this is the very the the most interesting point of having a whole sheen that is cascaded down and we even use that symbol here because it's like a pyramid it's it's cascaded down like that right so the whole organization is moving towards the same direction
00:53:02
Speaker
So, you ask it if I find it unusual, of course, I never had do a hosting before, so for me it was a new thing when I joined the company, but at the same time i find it very clear in terms of which direction everybody will take because everything that you do during the year is aligned with the Hoshin.
00:53:26
Speaker
So there is no a reason or way to deviate unless of course there are changes in the market situations and then have to take decisions because you want to avoid ah many other ah shifts that could ah damage the yeah results of the company but unless that doesn't happen everybody agreed on the same direction in the beginning of the of the year and everybody will follow that direction.
00:53:54
Speaker
It sounds like a very consistent approach and and alignment within an organization, of course, is is critical for success. ah and Given the scope and the size of of Toyota operations in Brazil, the number of people and the number of cars sold, the number of customers, this this is very important to get that full alignment.
00:54:12
Speaker
If we didn't do like this, well, I don't know if we would be able to take care of so many customers, so many cars to sell, organize the whole production. i mean, ah it's a lot of things. So that's why it's important to have this whole thing in this direction.
Jorge's Career Journey and Advice
00:54:31
Speaker
So George, was really fascinating hearing your journey going from Brazil to Sweden, back to Brazil, to the US, and now also changing really dramatically the the cultures within your work, right?
00:54:45
Speaker
Moving to a new company. um Toyota, fascinating story and so much variance and it really shows your personal adaptability, being able to move and shift successfully between these different types of organizations.
00:55:00
Speaker
I do want to thank you very much for joining us today it's and sharing your story with us. um and Any last words from your side, any summary that you want to leave, words of wisdom for the audience?
00:55:13
Speaker
Thank you, John. ah Thank you for, first of all, thank you for the invitation. It's ah really a pleasure to be here and be able, being able to share all the experience that I had during the last 32, 33 years. very and of course it's very funny going down the memory lane and remembering so many things that to were done during those years and even when we worked together, right?
00:55:40
Speaker
If I can give any words of wisdom And this is basically what I did for the last 33 years is always put your heart in what you do and do the best you can.
00:55:55
Speaker
Because if you work with your heart, with passion for what you do, you will always achieve the best results. And achieving the best results by doing things with passion means you will always go forward, move up, not only as develop as a person,
00:56:13
Speaker
professional, I mean, the in in the working environment environment, but you will also become a better person if you do everything that you can with all your heart.
00:56:24
Speaker
That's it. Very wise words. I could not agree with you more. um Very, very meaningful. With that, I would like to thank the audience for joining us on today's podcast, at The Autoethnographer.
00:56:39
Speaker
We welcome you back for next week's episode. And until then, keep on driving. Thank you for joining us on today's journey. Please remember to like and subscribe to The Auto Ethnographer and leave us a rating or comment. For more information, visit our website at auto-ethnographer.com.
00:56:57
Speaker
You can also follow on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.