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EP 14: Benny Oeyen Part 1: A global citizen with a Belgian passport boosts Mazda and Chrysler-Jeep in Europe
29 Plays6 days ago
During this two-part episode, The Auto Ethnographer’s host John Stech speaks with Benny Oeyen, a Belgian who is passionate about building bridges between cultures. With automotive experience on four continents and with four distinctly different automakers, he is well-prepared to speak on cultural impacts in the industry. Benny is in the unique position of having worked for automakers in or from three major Asian countries, Mazda, Kia, and GM China. He is energetic and tells his story in a candid, compelling way weaving together the cultural aspects to the product strategy.
In Episode 14 the conversation focuses on Benny being Mazda Europe’s first non-Japanese employee, a Product Manager. It was a learning process from both sides with Benny learning his employer’s culture and Mazda learning about European customer requirements.
Long enamored with American culture and cars, Benny shifts over to Chrysler Europe in its upstart European office in Brussels. Here he helps define customer needs for American engineers that know exclusively how to engineer large-engined vehicles for American tastes. Indeed, the opening seconds of the podcast highlights Benny’s challenge of asking engineers for Europe-specific content and specifications on Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge vehicles. He would go on to working for Chrysler Corp (later DaimlerChrysler) in the World Headquarters in Michigan as well as in Switzerland in senior roles.
Episode 15 next week continues Benny's story at Kia Motors Europe and General Motors China in Shanghai.
For more information about The Auto Ethnographer please visit the homepage at https://www.auto-ethnographer.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
oh, there is Benny, I hope he doesn't want to sell this car in Europe because then he needs for Ireland and the UK the steering wheel on the other side which adds another 50-60 million to it.
00:00:12
Speaker
Then he will come with Euro NCAP 5 star. Then he will come with the wipers have to wipe at 200 km per hour which we don't give a flip about here but it's very important.
00:00:22
Speaker
And then he will come with fuel consumption and things like that. So it was a little bit like that.
Guest Introduction: Benny Oyen
00:00:28
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.
00:00:38
Speaker
Fasten your seatbelt and let's get started. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Auto Ethnographer. We have a fantastic guest on today, somebody who can tell us a lot of stories about a lot of places across the planet in the automotive industry.
00:00:54
Speaker
His name is Benny Oyen and he is an absolute professional in the area of product planning and product strategy.
Benny's Career Journey
00:01:00
Speaker
From being the first non-Japanese in Mazda Motors Europe to joining Chrysler in Europe and later moving to the United States for the company,
00:01:10
Speaker
to moving back to Europe with Kia Motors Europe and finally landing in Shanghai with General Motors, he has truly covered the globe. Today he's going to share some of his experiences and observations with the brands from three different Asian countries from Japan, Korea and China.
00:01:29
Speaker
as well as talking a little bit about the American brands of Chrysler, Jeep, and Dodge and his experiences as a Belgian in the United States. So settle in, get comfortable because this is going to be an interesting and probably even humorous journey.
Cultural Background and Early Life
00:01:44
Speaker
Benny, welcome to the Auto Ethnographer. Thank you very much, John. And yeah, very glad to be here. Yeah, you put a lot of pressure on me, very humorous. So I have to start with a joke, right? But I won't.
00:01:57
Speaker
I won't start with the joke because now ah the the bar is very high. But yeah, and so I'm Benny Oyen. I'm a Belgian, but which is already a complicated cultural ah cultural experiment as a country, you like, right, with ah three languages.
00:02:15
Speaker
Dutch, French and German. Let's not forget that. ah But I was born and grew up in Germany to make it even more complicated because my father was stationed with NATO ah in in Germany at the time of the Cold War. And there was still a West and East Germany. And yeah, there were a lot of British troops and Dutch troops and Belgian troops and American troops.
00:02:38
Speaker
And basically, they were trying to prevent Russia from doing what they're
Early Career at Mazda Motors Europe
00:02:42
Speaker
doing right now, right? So this was the the the whole this was my whole life. Basically, we were 130 kilometers, 90 miles from the the Iron Curtain. There we could see the Warsaw Pact and and the Soviet-style watchtower. So it it made a big impression on me as a child. But we're not here to talk about that.
00:03:03
Speaker
we're here to talk about uh my my experience in in the car business and and and in the multicultural environment so yeah so let me so let me start off so after i i studied at the university and did my military service which then was also for the reasons i just mentioned still compulsory we had conscription in every west european country except the united kingdom uh so i had to go for for one year to the army basic training i became a four by four
00:03:34
Speaker
credentials and stuff like that and I've always been a car guy and in um yeah like it was at this time so for the younger generation uh who might be listening to this uh this is very strange for you what I'm going to say now but there was no internet and a job ad you it was in the Saturday uh section of the newspaper but And I saw, I know it's what I tell my children, they think like I was born in, in, in the, in the Holy Roman empire or something like that.
00:04:03
Speaker
Uh, that's how old it it sounds. But, uh, and there was this ad leading Asian car manufacturer, is looking for the European headquarter for a junior or starting a product manager. And I go, I go for that.
00:04:18
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I got it. And it was the European headquarters, uh, for, um,
00:04:25
Speaker
based in Brussels called Mazda Motiv. And I went in there in 1990 and yeah that was still quite quite an interesting experience but i I'll come to that that afterwards but indeed as you said I was the first um non-Japanese non-admin or non-secretary working in there so it's quite interesting.
00:04:47
Speaker
Afterwards, I went to Chrysler Europe, also based in Brussels in 1996. I can talk about that a little bit because it combined my love for for cars with my love for America, which I always had. i always thought the US is is such a cool country.
00:05:01
Speaker
listened to American music. I read about the US. It was kind of my dream country, my dream country. my absolute example in the world and I really have an emotional connection to the US. So to me that the American brands, one of the big three set up shop in Brussels where I was working already was a great opportunity. So I did that so I can talk about that.
00:05:26
Speaker
a little bit with them as i worked in brussels in urban hills in zurich switzerland and back in urban hills then i i was basically headhunter to weigh and went to kia very interesting experience also from a cultural point of view to a hyundai kia very korean company went to frankfurt germany work in the european operations and then finally after six years there i went to china with a general motor so
00:05:59
Speaker
So quite quite something. worked in six, seven countries. So now I'm in London, based in London. I changed the sector six, seven years ago and I work for a mining company where we sell a lot to automotive ah for the precious metals, for the catalytic converters, et cetera. But I'm also in in the corporate venture capital world where I do startup ah companies all over the world with technology that uses our our
Consulting and China Auto Focus
00:06:25
Speaker
metals. And now lately I'm also
00:06:29
Speaker
motive a little bit. I'm a partner in a company ah that is a consulting company for everything China Auto. And we are connecting European distributors of wholesalers who are looking at at this play aura of Chinese brands and figuring out which brand we want to be part of that because China is hot right now when it comes to cars they're very advanced and which one should we should we import here because there's so many and we don't know anything that's that's what i do now so i'm a partner there with with with the owner of the company gentlemen called the rules so that's a little bit my journey here so three continents seven countries uh yeah and as you said probably a lot of stories to tell
00:07:14
Speaker
That's a fantastic story already. it's It's so difficult to even choose where to begin. So I think let's just make an obvious choice and start at the beginning. and You told me ah you were the first non-Japanese at Mazda Motors Europe.
00:07:30
Speaker
and How was that? That must have been interesting because the company was brand new in in Europe. Yes, they must have just arrived ah or or they've been there and they worked primarily with a Japanese workforce for a long period of time.
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah, they didn't really have a strong European presence. Then they worked with wholesalers, with private companies who wholesale and then do distribution network in almost all the countries, except in the largest car market, which is Germany.
00:07:56
Speaker
So MMD or Mazamotors Deutschland, that was a wholly owned subsidiary, but all the rest was private distributors and they had like a small coordination office. And then also a design and R&D office in in Frankfurt that that they had as well.
00:08:12
Speaker
ah But like for the whole marketing side, sales side, product planning, et cetera, et cetera, I was the first one that was based in Brussels. It was split at the time. And yeah, so it was it was quite something because first first of all, I mean, in 1990, Japan was probably a bit like China now, kind of an exotic country ah that everybody was a bit afraid of that they were taking over the world.
00:08:34
Speaker
ah You remember these days, then wasn't it that time when they also bought Hollywood and the Empire State Building and they said it was like Japan Inc. And so that was one thing. So the culture and and the way of doing business with Japanese was still very a foreign, not known
Navigating Japanese Work Culture
00:08:51
Speaker
to many, many Westerners. That's one.
00:08:53
Speaker
But then secondly, I also have to say Mazda was very, very different um to the big boys. The big boys are Toyota, Nissan and Honda. and Honda are much larger than Mazda and they're from the major global cities. They're from Tokyo, Yokohama area, right? Where ah people don't, even in 1990, people don't giggle as a ah white Westerner if you walk the streets.
00:09:21
Speaker
In Hiroshima, ah the people watched and schoolgirls giggled ah because they saw somebody like me. So it was still ah quite quite different. So it's much smaller and they're from Hiroshima, which is the countryside, right? It's like, I don't know, a Honda, Toyota, Nissan were from ah New York, Chicago, l LA.
00:09:43
Speaker
And I don't know, what Mazda was from, I don't know, somewhere in in in in sort South Carolina or something like that. You know what I mean? Very more countryside.
00:09:55
Speaker
They called them, the other Japanese called the people from there, Onoborisan. It means like a bit redneck or countryside, I should say. So it was very, very, very Japanese. So I remember walking in there and and the the staff, when they were doing office work,
00:10:13
Speaker
took off their shoes and they were wearing slippers, shuffling around on the carpet and things like things I'd never seen and and taking the naps at lunch on their desk and like this. So all the cliches and doing the the exercises in the morning on the tape. I saw that in the Oshima, they also replicated that in Brussels and this very, very Japanese stuff, which I thought was was really cool.
00:10:38
Speaker
and and interesting and that that was just great for me. Mazda was actually on a roll um in Germany, which was and still is in Europe the toughest market to to compete because it's the Lions Denner, you're up against all German or Jams to come there as an importer.
00:10:53
Speaker
They had the number one known German car for a long time, which was at that time called the Mazda 626, it's their D-segment sedan. And it was very good value for money.
00:11:04
Speaker
ah very good in the reliability. So kind of J.D. Power the statistics and things like that. So it it had a following, but it was still quite small. But I wanted to expand. I wanted to professionalize it.
00:11:19
Speaker
And it was really a lot lot of fun for me. And they saw me a little bit as this bridge between the the Japanese stuff and then all these different countries where they had private importers, because then you have to deal with their management is very different than Mazda Germany was was wholly owned by Mazda.
00:11:38
Speaker
And at the end of the day, they they had to do what Hiroshima slash Brussels said, but the others not, you had to negotiate with them. there was There were a big importer in France and there was a big importer in Spain and there was one in Italy and there was one in Belgium and there was one in Holland and there was one in Scandinavia, etc. And sometimes the the the language and the cultural bridge was very difficult and I felt like a fish in the water there because I'm this multicultural mutt.
00:12:07
Speaker
If you put in United Nations, Google search images, maybe my my my picture pops up or something like that sometimes. That's what my friends said. but And then very quickly I established my network and they liked to have me in the meetings because I could see both sides and things like that. But yeah, it was very interesting to get to know them. Also their way of working in 1990. Then I went to Hiroshima. It was the first time in my life. I was in my late 20s and I set foot in Japan.
00:12:37
Speaker
It was course quite amazing how they work, hardworking. and very precise, very disciplined, ah super on the execution. i remember visiting car plants in in in in Europe before. I mean, it was like a the old industrial affair, right? A bit dirty and a bit dusty and and people kind of are in a bad mood. It's like putting cars together, kind of a rough environment. I think especially if we have people uh listening from the detroit area or from the big tree they know what i'm talking about also in in the american car car industry and then i went to there and you saw the pride that these people have even the the lowest guy a simple job on the assembly line putting the oil filter in had his this little gloves and the Mazda hat and and his name and the Mazda logo and they were like proud to put the oil filter in where if you go to a European factory they were like god damn it I have to put 500 more in and then my shift is gone and then i can go drinking with my buddies
00:13:40
Speaker
right that was written all over their face, but in Malta it was very different. And I think that also, it's a small detail what I talked to you about now, but that resulted in really good good quality.
Challenges and Adaptations at Mazda
00:13:51
Speaker
So ah so yeah, that' that's their very big advantage. What I also saw is ah like everything in life, yin and yang, right? Where there's light, there's shadows, where there's roses, there's thorns.
00:14:02
Speaker
You also have, everything has an advantage, has disadvantage. Disadvantage sometimes was a bit, the very, the Japanese culture is quite conservative. They're not risk takers, they're not go-getters, they're not jumpers and do it a bit like the Americans are, that the Japanese are not at all.
00:14:19
Speaker
and because of that because there's a risk avoidance which is sometimes good because you don't do crazy things and it's very predictable but you sometimes miss opportunities right because you become a bit slow and inert and so very interesting but this this was like a great time i i learned a lot they had some some great products in the d segment as i said the mazda 626 it was called in the c segmented 323 they had a poor man's porsche i remember that it was called a tree to tree f because it had a popup
00:14:52
Speaker
headlamps like Porsche had at the time, ah but for a quarter of the price, that kind of stuff. And then they had a very famous MX-5, which is called the Miata in the US. And it was in Europe, it was the MX-5. It was the reinvention of the the classic a British Roadster, um but then without the parts falling off of the car and the quality issues that ah the British car industry faced that at the end of the day. So it was Japanese precision mechanics with the concept, the fantastic concept of over ah of a roll Roadster and that that was fantastic.
00:15:26
Speaker
So great success with that. um Also some failures. So of course, They looked at at at what the others are doing in the luxury segment, in the premium segment. You can cash in much more premium than in in the volume segment, especially if you have the parts bin of the volume segment.
00:15:46
Speaker
Right. That's what Audi does with Volkswagen. Right. That's what Lexus very ah successfully does with with Toyota and and he and an Acura for Honda and et cetera.
00:15:58
Speaker
ah So Infiniti with Nissan. So Mazda said we need to do this, too. So they launched a premium brand called XEDOS XEDOS. So I was there right from the beginning ah looking for the name and the agencies with the name and you it you can imagine the whole thing.
00:16:16
Speaker
But at the end it it really didn't work. I mean even Lexus was struggling a lot. They only recently, very recently now 30 years later get a bit of traction because hybrids and stuff like that where have advantage.
00:16:27
Speaker
is is getting into vogue but then evil a was an absolute niche player compared to Toyota so Xeidos went absolutely nowhere um yeah and and they also had this
00:16:44
Speaker
cars and eight cylinders and and things like that so that that didn't really really work but uh yeah interesting company always interesting also on the powertrain side uh they for example they had a rotary engine you probably remember that the rx7 and with the rx7 during my time at mazda europe they also won uh the le mans 24 hours uh with the rotary engine I think it was 93 or 94, something like that must have been like that.
00:17:11
Speaker
And ah yeah, it was quite amazing. So very special company, niche, quite profitable at the time, but but at the mercy of the exchange rates because everything was made in Japan.
00:17:29
Speaker
and the yen exchange rate versus there was no euro back then but there was the european exchange rate mechanism which is kind of the same as euro when the japanese yen just took off and and increased then your your profit was wiped out in a b-second
00:17:51
Speaker
You have such thin margins, a little exchange rate fluctuation in a month ah can make you from a profitable car into a negative car. So these kind of things were really, ah really complicated. They then became in they the yeah went to very difficult financial situation because they were a big exporter. They were small.
00:18:13
Speaker
very small in Japan itself, but relatively to their size in Japan, they were a big exporter. And now with the exchange rate of the Yen, Mazda really got into trouble and Ford took a majority stake. And then Ford yeah started, how can I say, ah having more management influence, etc. But that was also around the time when I left to Chrysler. But interesting experience for me to see that.
00:18:42
Speaker
It really sounds that way. um So tell me, how did 20-something-year-old Benny Oyen, who is really at the beginning of his career, figure out how to navigate with the Japanese culture in the office. yeah you're you're You're Belgian, you grew up in Germany.
00:19:01
Speaker
Those two cultures are pretty direct. you know they They tell you the truth just like that. and And the Japanese are a little bit different. It's more indirect and much more nuanced. How did you figure that out? Did did you have any major, let's say, you know bloopers ah during the beginning of your career?
00:19:18
Speaker
Yeah, I probably had a couple of bloopers, but yeah, it's You kind of learn along. There was no things like cultural training or something like that. Cultural training was you just start, then you do it. And that was it. And you you kind of figure it out. But it's true. So but after some time, the indirectness is is amazing.
00:19:36
Speaker
You learn how to translate the language, the indirect language choice, like ah even body language. A typical Japanese body language is for a Japanese manager.
00:19:48
Speaker
if something is difficult and he's not sure or basically doesn't want to do it or is not agreeing with you, is you put your teeth together and you suck in air.
00:19:59
Speaker
Hmm, difficult, no, Benny-san. If you hear that, then you know like, no this is no good. I have to rework the paper. So you you kind of get the the gist of it after some time. I thought it it was really funny. Usually all by the time this will also shock the millennials.
00:20:22
Speaker
This sucking in air was usually cigarette air, cigarette smoke then, because at that time it was still very normal to smoke in the offices, especially of Japanese companies. So quite an amazing.
00:20:34
Speaker
Yeah, you you just figure it out. And it's that's why i think I very quickly established myself as as a name because I was there for product and and and making sure that the product that comes from Japan is in the frame of the of the possible.
00:20:49
Speaker
ah is adapted to the European markets. For example, at that time, I still remember in Germany, that's all gone now. But you had these insurance classifications with horsepower and you couldn't go over there. So every time you went over that that level, your insurance premium went up and and it was, I think it was 75 horsepower, 90, 115 and 150. I still have them in my head.
00:21:12
Speaker
So the stupidest thing you can do is, for example, bring something with 151 horsepower because you don't go any faster and you pay the higher premium. things like that right so we helped them with that and at that time the EU market was not very integrated yet you still had homologation requirements separate for every country you just imagine that you have to do 27 different homologation things now you do one and and it's it's for the whole european market which is fourteen million fifteen million cars or something per year so thank god uh for all that but then it was still much more complicated but what i wanted to say is i was like seen as this i think it's also sometimes it's something you have i was just born with that i kind of i have antennas i naturally adapt to the situation and i know how to to to deal with different uh cultures and and not not offend them maybe that's my belgian dna because in belgium it's very complicated and and
00:22:11
Speaker
whether you're on the Flemish side or on the French speaking side, you always offend the other because they think differently. They have different opinions, different cultures, the Latin culture versus the Germanic culture, et cetera.
Integration with Ford and Strategic Collaborations
00:22:22
Speaker
So we are naturally born compromise seekers, I should say.
00:22:26
Speaker
And so um maybe I had that a little bit in me because it's not was's not only but between the Japanese and the Japanese. and and the Europeans, because the Europeans didn't exist. Sometimes it was make Europe speak with one voice because Japan wants to know, OK, what does Europe want?
00:22:45
Speaker
And then, well, the French want this, the Germans want that. The English, by definition, always want something else. And then the Spanish don't know yet, but they'll probably do something else. So things like that. Right.
00:22:58
Speaker
So and and just to to make that and and then the Germans against the French in a meeting publicly disagreeing and then the Japanese well, we won't listen then we'll listen to the Americans and we'll do that. And you're just so I tried to avoid that and find this this compromise. so So you kind of learn that and and get along with it. But yeah, you have to learn. it But what helped me is I did a lot of trips to Japan. Sometimes i was stationed there for three weeks or four weeks to work on the the product introduction.
00:23:26
Speaker
And you became well, I said I was in my late 20s. You become buddies with the others of of my age and yeah who i still have contact with I visited a couple of years ago and in Hiroshima and they said it was really a lot of fun.
00:23:39
Speaker
Of course, we we went out together, went eating and clubbing and karaoke singing and all the the fun stuff that you can do. And you become kind of part of them. I have to say they're very welcoming if you're part of the... Because Japan at first might seem a bit, oh, it's like a foreign planet. and I'm not sure. But if you're with the same company, they have this very strong company equals family feeling.
00:24:02
Speaker
And when you're part of the private proud Mazda family in Hiroshima. You're part of them and you're you're basically a good guy. And I got to, yeah, and after some time you establish a network and you get things done, you get things done for the European distributors. They appreciate that.
00:24:16
Speaker
So it's this virtuous circle that that gets set into motion. So that's a little bit how it went. Yeah, as the as the company grew, obviously it gained success.
00:24:27
Speaker
um Some of those products are fantastic. They're pretty iconic, like the MX-5 or Miata, as it's known in the US. um As it gained success, you also grew. Were you, as the first non-Japanese, ah were you seen as somewhat of a mentor for some of the people that came in later, or they also just kind of stumbled and fumbled along by themselves?
00:24:48
Speaker
No, no, I was seen a bit as a mentor. Afterwards, we hired one or two people. Then we merged the organization with the German organization because I said Germany, they had to save money as well. the German organization. So it moved from Brussels to Leverkusen, which is near Cologne.
00:25:04
Speaker
And then Mazda in one building was Mazda Germany and Mazda Europe. And then there and then because of the location there, there was more change. People went from the German organization to European organization for back and forth.
00:25:21
Speaker
And then, as I said, because of the financial trouble Mazda was in, Ford took a big stake, controlling stake. And i if I remember at the end of my tenure, it was certain Mr. Wallace. I think he was a Scotsman from so Ford. and He became the first CEO of Mazda.
00:25:41
Speaker
So a gaijin, gaijin means like non-Japanese people in in Japanese language, ah became a CEO of a major blue chip Japanese powerhouse.
00:25:53
Speaker
And I remember then walking in there, there were TV crews outside, etc. because it was big breaking news in in Japan. So it was a bit Carlos Ghosn of Nissan 1.0, right? Ghosn was 2.0 the second time, but it was a much bigger one. But it already happened before. That was a big time.
00:26:10
Speaker
And then more, how can I say, Western people started pouring in. But as I said, in 1996, I left. I was through connections had turned away kind of to connections to Chrysler Europe, who was setting up shop in in Brussels, right, where I was working.
00:26:30
Speaker
Coming back for one second to the Mazda experience, when Ford did that, um I guess, I don't want to call it a takeover, but but the majority stake and installed in CEO, you know that story was quite similarly felt at Volvo.
00:26:45
Speaker
and And Volvo had quite an influence from Ford. Was that similar at Mazda that you had a Ford influence that kind of pushed its way through the company and through the layers?
00:26:57
Speaker
It was but I i was at a at tail end of my time at Mazda and at the very beginning so i I have it more from hearsay but of course they did they they combined a lot.
00:27:10
Speaker
Actually i was already little bit before Ford took the majority when the trouble started we had a B-segment car. B-segment car was the Mazda 1-2-1 A very cute little car, funny car. It was like right out of a cartoon because normally B-segment cars were three door and five door hatches, right?
00:27:29
Speaker
So two box cars and they made a three box car. So with a little boot around, looked like a little baby. It was amazing. And it was a runaway success. And it we couldn't get enough of it. I remember sales meetings with the European countries and they were discussing and the fight and attention was about who would get more. up France, it's not fair the Germans get too many and don't you know and we want 5,000 more and blah, blah, blah. So there was this.
00:27:57
Speaker
And then the yen started appreciating. And this was a B-segment car and they were all made in in Hiroshima. And yeah, you can't. It's a very price sensitive segment with high price electricity from the consumer side. You can't just slap a 15% higher price on a B-segment car. You're dead in the water.
00:28:18
Speaker
And then it went underwater. Then it became like, how many cars can we afford to sell of these of this runaway success? And we decided, well, the ideal CFO, of course, was saying, I just stopped selling. You know how CFOs are. They look at their Excel sheet, they go, it's negative, stop. And then in three years we come back.
00:28:36
Speaker
It doesn't work like that. If you vacate a segment, you're forgotten in that segment. So we wanted to so to keep a foot in it, but we couldn't afford it anymore. So we went to Ford, who at that time had like, I believe, 20% or something like that.
00:28:48
Speaker
share already in Mazda, but they were not active. Then later they increased it. And we looked at their B segment car, which was called the Ford Fiesta, very famous. And so what we did is like a very cheap and I got put in charge of that with almost no money and very little time.
00:29:06
Speaker
And so it was called the BE 91M. So B for B segment, E for Europe, 91 was the code of the car and M was the Mazda version. It was just a little cladding and and wheel caps on the outside and on the inside. But we quickly needed to do this and I was put in charge of that. So to me, that was also very interesting because then suddenly i had meetings with with this typical British engineers and product planners from Dunton, which is a technical center in the UK.
00:29:33
Speaker
And there were giants at the time in Europe talking to little Mazda and then try to arrange that with the engineers in in Hiroshima and and the design center in Frankfurt.
00:29:44
Speaker
That was quite interesting. But Yeah, we did it. Launched in, night I still remember, at the Brussels Motor Show in January 1996. The target was 25,000 a year and we we hit it.
00:29:55
Speaker
and We did it. And it's not a car that I'm proud of from a pure car perspective, but because it's like minimum cosmetic changes, ah but it saved the B-segment for Mazda, which and later became the Mazda 2. Things like that when things got better.
00:30:11
Speaker
um that's That's what I did. So I was already a bit for cooperation. a allla letre but That's a great example because it shows that you know when there is a need, then also the the Japanese culture can move very quickly and and be very ah very adapting.
00:30:28
Speaker
That went very quickly then. Yeah, yeah no, no, no. so please Don't get me wrong. they're not always this slow. But in general, their attitude is not risk takers, go getters. They analyze and very detailed and it has to be precise.
Transition to Chrysler and American Market Adaptations
00:30:41
Speaker
ah but Analog with Germany actually a little bit sometimes. I think the German culture is also very precise, very engineering driven, analyze everything. where Americans are dead, but at some point, the Americans just say like, you know, now it's enough.
00:30:57
Speaker
Let's go. Well, yeah, as you said, let's go. So let's let's go actually to your next step in your career path, which is jumping fully on board with an American company.
00:31:10
Speaker
At that point in time, it was Chrysler Corp located, of course, up in in Detroit slash Auburn Hills, Michigan. And you said you were starting or helping them to really set up the office and in Brussels and get them going in Europe.
00:31:26
Speaker
I'd love to learn a little bit more about what was happening then. And what kind of a role did you play? And and what was your interaction with the Americans? You said you already liked the music and the movies and the culture. yeah you know how How was that? Was that like a fish going into water?
00:31:43
Speaker
Oh, very much. it was I was the happiest fish and the water was great. It was American water, I loved it. So, um yeah, it it was really like that. They already had a small ah European kind of rep office in Frankfurt, but then they said, we're going to make it really a big operation and and seriously, wanted to seriously grow.
00:32:02
Speaker
Then they relocated to to Brussels and yeah so the operation became much bigger and that's where I came on board. I was in in product management and well Of course, everybody says what they did is the core, but it is the core at the end.
00:32:16
Speaker
You sell product and if the product isn't fit for the market that you sell in, you will fail and all the rest doesn't matter anymore. So and I was there and yeah, I was trying to do um what Mr. Trump wants once now the Europeans to do is to buy more American cars. Right. It is not so easy. Right. It's not just I just buy some and they the Europeans did not not buy American cars because of some tariffs or some hanky panky stuff. They didn't buy them because in masses, because they were not appropriate for their needs.
00:32:53
Speaker
So it's very, very simple. You have to make sure these needs are translated into engineering actions, which are not translated into product, which then is translated into more sales. That's how it works. Right. And but when i I went there, so I was responsible for for the whole Chrysler ah lineup and and together with mine a but my colleagues. So we weve worked with the engineers back in Auburn Hills and said, listen, this is what we need. This is the engines we need that we make business cases and things like that ah for for certain cars and variants.
00:33:24
Speaker
But they were quite successful at the time because the US had cars that the Europeans didn't have yet. And it had a niche appeal factor in Europe.
00:33:35
Speaker
And um I'll give you two examples back then in 96, The minivan, there was nothing except the Chrysler Voyager, like that's how we sold it. We always sold it with one brand, was Chrysler.
00:33:46
Speaker
And then you had the Renault Espace, that was it. The Germans were asleep, the Italians were asleep, there was absolutely nothing. The Swedish were doing their square Volvos and Saabs and that was it.
00:33:59
Speaker
And there was nothing. and the Japanese at that time they started a bit Toyota with the Previa maybe you remember that but very very little Mazda tried with the MPV but that was cool right it was the original minivan another one thing was SUVs Europeans didn't have SUVs there were no SUVs but there was the Cherokee and the Grand Cherokee that was very cool and then to link um the SUV capabilities off-road capabilities with luxury there was only Jeep that did it and then
00:34:29
Speaker
very niche and super expensive Range Rover, right? They put leather trims and wood and all that fine British interior stuff into the Range Rover and Grand Cherokee did the same in in in Europe. And that was very, very appealing, right? The problem was of course that they had huge engines that that were drinking of petrol as drunken sailors.
00:34:54
Speaker
In the US, this didn't matter. because at that time it was like 140 or 180 a gallon, where in Europe it was already 6 or 7 a gallon. now Because of taxation in Europe, there's very high taxation on petrol, because all the Europeans want free college and free healthcare and that's part of where the money comes from.
00:35:12
Speaker
So it is for free, it doesn't exist, somebody always pays. And so we had to have diesels in there. So there was an adoption already with a diesel engine for a Grand Cherokee. It was, I hate to say it was a terrible diesel engine. It was from VM, Venti Motori, an Italian volt threeport one, 3.1, I think five cylinder.
00:35:30
Speaker
It made a tractor kind of noise, so it was not very good. And then later, ah we can come to that a little bit with the merger. Then we got really the fine Mercedes diesels in there, and that was was excellent.
00:35:45
Speaker
But yeah, so it it was kind of cool. So they had the Voyager, the Cherokee and the Grand Cherokee, SUVs. And then later the PT Cruiser, which was the ultimate Americana retro thing for Europe.
00:35:58
Speaker
I mean, for it was exotic for Americans, the PT Cruiser, because I remember them selling over sticker price when it was large. So in Europe, it was even more exotic. And that that was a runaway success. And we did very, very well.
00:36:14
Speaker
So yeah, so it was was really interesting. I loved working with the Americans. Americans are very easy to work with. Basically, they they just take you at face value. They don't care where you're from. When you perform, it's great.
00:36:28
Speaker
it's It's lose its first name basis, right? Immediately. I mean, I was like a relatively junior product manager and when Bob Lutz came I was like hi Mr. Lutz hey call me Bob you know but so it immediately puts you at ease there is something about the the American culture that's very ah working culture it's very very cool and very inclusive in that sense and I loved it I thrived there uh also many things depend many things in life depend on your immediately immediate boss
00:37:00
Speaker
i had a fantastic guy who hired me his name was steve bartoli he retired now but god bless him the best one of the best guys i ever worked for we had a great team a lot of fun um and yeah we were quite actually quite quite successful of course also typical american as you said incredible goals uh which then don't materialize sometimes right so very ah optimistic and we're going to take over the world immediately.
00:37:27
Speaker
And that, of course, didn't happen. ah But still, it was a quite quite ah nice and and interesting ah period to do to try to work with the mit fatigue very
European Manufacturing and Specification Complexities
00:37:39
Speaker
American.
00:37:39
Speaker
Because as I worked for Mazda, which was probably of all the Japanese, the most Japanese, because they were not from Yokohama and not so international, etc. From the big three, Chrysler was the most American.
00:37:52
Speaker
Because it was purely, purely American-American. Because in GM and Ford, ya they are doing business in Europe and all over the globe since 100 years, and they have exacts who lived here and there, et cetera.
00:38:03
Speaker
I mean, in Chrysler, people were still like, oh, my God, Europe, can you drink the water there? And you have electricity, almost. They are making a little bit a joke, but it was almost like, oh my God, what? going to go outside of Michigan?
00:38:15
Speaker
Wow. so So it was very American. I think Chrysler at the time sold. 2.4 million cars or something like that, of which 2.3 million were in the US and Canada.
00:38:27
Speaker
So it was a purely American company. And I liked that a lot. I thought it was awesome to use a very American word. I used to ah joke around in in Michigan that international trade meant to drive across the Ohio border to buy beer.
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah, it's true. they they were They were very much like that. The culture was very much like that but but in a good way, not in a bad way. They were not bad or mean or like, oh no, everything has to be like we do it. They were very respectful and listening to it and they they knew it and they wanted to learn and do better because they wanted they want their company to thrive obviously which we tried to help for us. Really cool actually.
00:39:09
Speaker
When you started, was the Eurostar manufacturing facility in Graz, Austria, already operational? Or was that something that came along after you started? It was already there. It made, if I remember well, it made forages and Grand Cherokees.
00:39:25
Speaker
Correct, correct. I actually worked on the supplier side. Yes. my My company was actually supplying instrument panels into Eurostar at the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was already there. So it's not that they didn't look at it at all, but Still, I mean, my group in Chrysler was called International, right? They were called it International, everything that's And yeah, so so I had to establish links with with the platform teams. They were called, you had the small car platform team and the large car platform team and the Jeep, but they were still located in Plymouth Road, I think it was called, there their their facility there.
00:40:04
Speaker
And you have to establish relationships with them. man every time when international came around the corner, they and I understand that the engineers kind of rolled their eyes because it meant lot of requests and no fault.
00:40:17
Speaker
right And a big headache for them. right oh There is Benny. I hope he doesn't want to sell this car in Europe because then he needs for Ireland and the UK the steering wheel on the other side which adds another 50-60 million to it.
00:40:32
Speaker
Then he will go with Euro NCAP 5 star. Then he will go with the wipers have to wipe at 200 km per hour which we don't give a flip about here but it's very important.
00:40:42
Speaker
and then he will come with fuel consumption and things like that so it was a little bit like that but on the other hand you also at a certain moment you know i have like this this guy uh then there first in brussels and then uh we can talk about that in in in auburn hills that was after the merger you establish personal relationships also a little bit and it's your personal credibility that gets a lot of done right that's something i learned But that we can talk about that later. But then when I was there, so I started in October 96 and only not even two years later, was it May or may or June 98? Yes.
00:41:18
Speaker
yes You said in one of your podcasts you were driving home and you couldn't believe it. ah I still remember where I was. We were introducing the 300M, the Chrysler 300M, talking about the niche car in Europe.
00:41:31
Speaker
And we had a select group of European journalists and we were in Atlanta, Georgia. And there was the US lounge and we piggybacked on that with our journalists. and We were driving around and there was like a big rumor at the time that Chrysler was gonna buy Honda.
00:41:49
Speaker
that was a big rumor and chrysler was gonna buy or go together with bmw because paul bloods has met the quality lady in in frankfurt who owns that was all this rumors rooms and then i remember a standing and the head of marketing and pr and he was ah he was a top pr guy also told and he passed away ah he was the bottom of my boss tom kowalewski he was standing him saying something's up something's up because he was on the phone my My colleagues tell me that the whole executive floor is empty and all the corporate jets have left have left the airport.
00:42:21
Speaker
So something's up, something's up. And they were like, the but and we were all speculating BMW, Honda, maybe Nissan. What is it going to be? Not once. There were all these journalists, all these Chrysler guys.
00:42:34
Speaker
Nobody knew about it. And not a single time. that I think all the OEMs came up. except one, which is Mercedes. I don't think anybody ever said, I think it's going to be Mercedes.
00:42:45
Speaker
And then it came like, what? So I remember. And then suddenly the next day, um that was all late in the afternoon. And the next morning, we were going to have a product briefing on the 300M and the specs and the wheelbase and the track and the acceleration and the cowl-fork design.
00:43:05
Speaker
And nobody cared anymore. It was all about but time the Diamond Chrysler version. So it was, ah yeah yeah, it was ah there was this moment, of these moments in time where I remember where I was.
00:43:17
Speaker
And then, yeah, so I became like a quite interesting guy, right? Because I was not really an American. i well i was not, an um I'm not an American, but I knew a lot that I was kind of getting Americana swag kind of over me. I could get along with them. They they noticed that at the German management.
00:43:33
Speaker
But I was also not a German, so not a Stuttgart breed that they were sending over like that. But I could speak German. I speak German like a German, although it's not my name my my mother tongue because I was born and grew up there.
00:43:46
Speaker
So i they thought this is an interesting guy. And then a gentleman about who I met there, Thomas Hausch, came along. He was a Mercedes manager put in charge of the whole international. said, yeah you're the guy. Do you want to come over?
00:43:59
Speaker
to Auburn Hills. So yeah, I packed up my family with two little kids, four and two, and moved from ah Belgium to Auburn Hills in 2001. And one on a big, big adventure started in in the wonderful tech center and in Auburn Hills along I-75. I have, yeah, so I would say quite a year up. And then my time in Auburn Hills was was fantastic. Probably one of the best times in in in my life was fantastic. Professional times in my life, I should say. It's really great.
00:44:27
Speaker
I think ah what's what's interesting at at that point in time, ah which I covered a little bit in in my podcast before when I gave a little bit of a monologue about it, Chrysler International was barely 10% of the sales volumes around the planet.
00:44:41
Speaker
and And here we were going into this product offensive with, you know what was it, a dozen, 15 different models that were rolling out over just a few years yeah in the early two thousand s And you already described a couple of different examples so where you had to ask for right-hand drive with, ah i don't know, what a right-hand drive ashtray and all these special things that had to be delivered for Europe.
00:45:09
Speaker
This must have been a huge challenge when you were actually sitting in Auburn Hills having to discuss and negotiate you know, 15 different models with the engineers and trying to get all the European and international ah beyond Europe requirements into them.
00:45:27
Speaker
Sometimes purely on a pure business case point of view, it didn't make sense. Sometimes it did, but sometimes it didn't. What was very adventurous financial accounting, let's put it like that. And you so you smell that right after some time, you know how that works.
00:45:41
Speaker
Then the volume seemed very optimistic and and things like that. But sometimes it's seen as a strategic investment, right? Sometimes you have to invest and suffer a little bit to to get foothold in in that segment.
00:45:54
Speaker
And it yeah, it was quite interesting. But like I said, the small thing like ashtrays, I think it's also very important. But the big hitters were always right hand drive. I still remember at that time, 20 years ago, it was 50 million, 60 million dollars extra that went into the program. So you can imagine how happy they were because every program was always at this minimum.
00:46:14
Speaker
our threshold. So that was interesting. And then ah Euro NCAP, so the crash test performance at the time, it was very different versus the US. so They did different type of test angles, rear impact, pedestrian impact, etc.
00:46:31
Speaker
And it became very pushy in the European press. So if you would come with a one star or two star crash test, it was disastrous. The customers didn't like it. For example, I'll give you an example.
00:46:44
Speaker
ah That was my moment of fame. I was on the French speaking Swiss television, interviewed in a consumer magazine when I was still working in Brussels. I had to fly to to Geneva or to autoto Zurich. I think it was in Geneva anyway.
00:47:02
Speaker
to Yeah, in Geneva in the French speaking part. Why? the Because the Chrysler Vortiger had only a two star or something like that. A bad, a very bad crash test result.
00:47:13
Speaker
and I had to save the day there and it was like very last minute. I remember I think Steve Bartoli coming on and going, my God, we have this thing going on and there's a bad breast crash test and then the Swiss are going to put a TV program out. They're going to completely destroy it. was a big market ah for us Switzerland or a very profitable market, not big, but very profitable. The Swiss, when they buy, they buy and they they take all the options and all the the bells and whistles and you really make a lot of money in Switzerland on your vehicles. And
00:47:44
Speaker
so I had to fly out there and and then yeah yeah you're sweating bullets and so I was armed with IIHS status things and saying that in the real world so you try to spin it a little bit that in the real world is different from the test and the test is different and and America is also very safety conscious and things like that but you see but you don't want to do that with every single car so they had to put structures in and and which are different which didn't bring them anything for the US market so I understood that they professionally hated me, but I tried to make up for that with my personality. but
00:48:21
Speaker
They still like it But listen, said you have to be reasonable also because that that was another thing, of a cultural thing. From the Mercedes side, ah were the Germans were like, we want everything 100%. And sometimes you have to compromise, right? So I sometimes caught fire.
00:48:42
Speaker
from that side saying I wasn't pushing hard enough with the engineers i and things like that. But sometimes if you go but for perfection, ah you get nothing and you die principled in beauty.
00:48:54
Speaker
And sometimes you go for very good, but you can get things done quickly and you have a car to launch and you kind of skate around it a little bit. So and sometimes I was like this, this little ah cultural difference, I should say.
00:49:08
Speaker
And I think in other podcasts, they talked about it. And I noticed that so much. as So ah but yeah it was it was a very interesting time. So there was also the time when then Dr. Zetscher came.
00:49:21
Speaker
Wolfgang Bernhard was driving in his leather jacket, basically on ah on a Dodge Viper engine with two wheels on the stage like Arnold Schwarzenegger would smoke around him. I mean, these guys were and Dr. Z and they were rock stars, right? It was this great.
00:49:36
Speaker
This was I loved it. I actually loved loved my time there. But yeah, not not easy. But you try to find a corporate. We did quite some some good things. ah So I remember that the Voyager, for example, when it had stowing. go You remember Mike Donner, he made stowing go in the Voyager. It was phenomenal. are you With the flip of a switch, but buth buthbo your seats disappear and you have basically a delivery van.
00:50:01
Speaker
Unbelievable. Nobody had this. And of course, because our car was made in Graz in Austria, it was not foreseen for Europe. Right. So then that was like a big one.
00:50:12
Speaker
And yeah, and I knew Mike a little bit that helped, but we made a the the case and we did it and we got to go in Europe. And another one was diesel automatic. We had a diesel, but not with an automatic gearbox. And if you buy an American car, don't want a manual one and the voyage was probably 80 90 diesel so we had to go to automatic that was a big engineering effort for the platform team for the minivan platform team first gordon rinsler then mike donald and it didn't bring anything for the americans but they did it for them we could for us we could convince them we had a good solid business case et etc so store and go diesel automatic that kind of stuff was was was really good
00:50:55
Speaker
so yeah and then the merger came and so many things have been said already helbert grocer has talked about the cultural differences with the 25 mercedes execs flying in with a combined total of 200 000 pages of binders and then the american sitting there with a notebook Very classic.
00:51:16
Speaker
And so it was was interesting interesting to watch that. But from an international point of view, I have to say we had quite some advantages because certainly, for example, for our bigger cars, we got really good diesel engines.
00:51:29
Speaker
So in the Grand Cherokee, we got the... I think I even know the code. OM64 or something like that. Anyway, the 3-liter V6 TDI common rail diesel um from Mercedes, which is one of the best diesel engines in the world.
00:51:48
Speaker
We put that in the Grand Cherokee, also in the Commander. You remember the Commander? there And also in the Chrysler 300C. That was fantastic. And then we did the Chrysler 300C Touring, which was the Dodge Magnum.
00:52:05
Speaker
It was kind of a sporty station. like and I saw that the first time in design. There you see how sometimes this wasn't how sometimes things happen. This was not planned for Europe. Frior was a 300c sedan, but Europe was a station wagon market. You saw a lot of Mercedes E-Class station wagon, A6 station wagon, BMW 5 station wagon, we called touring, e etc., etc.
00:52:26
Speaker
And then in the 300c, we just had a sedan because there's a crash at 300c. And I walk in the design studio, I think Ralph Gilles was showing me around. So I see in the corner of this big thing. And I'm like, what the hell is this, Ralph? Oh, yeah, but it's not for Europe. It's a Dodge.
00:52:39
Speaker
I said, but this is fantastic. This is like the 300C station wagon, right? Or this is my best to the Dodge Magnum. We can't do that. said, guys, we have to have this. Oh, no, we can't. And, you know, all these brand theory people who go, oh, you're going to kill the brand when they do this. They came up. And yeah, we anyway, to cut along, so shall be fight that we fought that successfully. We made a business case.
00:53:02
Speaker
And we had Chrysler 300 C with the Dodge Magnum shape, which was basically a sporty wagon. And that was fantastic. So we sold over 20,000 a year, but with I think we made over 20,000, 25,000 dollars per pop. So this was a super, super profitable car. So I'm very proud of that one, actually.
00:53:25
Speaker
And quite, quite interesting. how you see the the product pragmatics versus the brand purists, and then you have to find this this middle ground. So yeah, very interesting times.
00:53:38
Speaker
No, it's ah there's definitely a red thread there where you can see that it's a company that's focused heavily on its largest market or the largest markets in NAFTA.
00:53:48
Speaker
And everything else was was a battle, a little bit of a battle to to try to extract something that would be suitable for sale in other countries around the globe. But I have to say that that is something fun to to be in a position where you have to make those arguments and and tried to get that product developed for your individual markets. But it wasn't always easy because I remember instances where that there was a lot of tension because we wanted something I couldn't get my way. And my boss, my boss's boss too mahash got involved and he called Eric Ridenauer and it was like back and forth and we're doing it. No, we're not doing it.
00:54:27
Speaker
And things like that. So it was very, yeah very interesting to to see that but at the end, everybody I always say nobody comes in the office in the morning and says okay I'm gonna make a total mess out of this and I'm gonna do things that are really bad.
00:54:42
Speaker
Nobody does that right everybody goes in i think with that's my base premise goes in with I'm gonna do the best I can and this is what I think is gonna help my company in the short term, midterm, long term e etc and if That is different from what I think. I try to understand what is the the background of that, right? Why is that? And then you can discuss.
00:55:05
Speaker
And if I think if you're reasonable in these kind of positions of tension and and you're a reasonable person to to work with and and and things like that, it goes a long way. but you don't always win everything. And so there's certain things which doesn't make any sense. have to know exactly which battle to fight. have to know which battle to go for. And I can also understand that the American engineering side where I go, of course, we focus on our biggest market and they're always short on people and budget. And they're called these guys, you know, on the fringe and they want all this complicated, sophisticated stuff because we were small in volume.
00:55:39
Speaker
But I was international. But it mainly meant to Europe. So that was sometimes the the the criticism that I got that was a bit Eurocentric. and We also had to do Japan and China was still like very on the fringe right then, was not on the radar screen, which was a mistake in hindsight because we were one of the first ones there with Beijing Jeep and we didn't do anything with it.
00:56:01
Speaker
But anyway, it was very good. But European customers were the most demanding, the most demanding. So but it has to go fast. Everything has to work. It cannot consume anything.
00:56:12
Speaker
It has to be crash safe for all kinds of angles. So a complicated market. But if you at that time, at least, well, I think it's it' still like that. It is still like that. If you can make it in Europe, then it's it's a very good platform to make it in the rest of the world.
00:56:28
Speaker
Things are changing now a little bit with China. cars, the the the expectation of customers are shifting from the mechanical world into the electronic and the digital world, I should say. Right. In the past, it was like it it cannot rattle at 200 kmh and things like that.
00:56:43
Speaker
A millennial doesn't give a flip about that. He wants to order Uber Eats while he drives on a very interactive touch screen. So that's now ah very, very different. It's changing a little bit. But at that time,
00:56:55
Speaker
It was that and Europe was the most demanding market for that, for the, I would say, the mechanical aspects of a vehicle. Now it becomes the digital aspects of a vehicle. And hello, wake up call to all the auto execs who are listening to this fantastic podcast of John Stack.
00:57:12
Speaker
It is now China. It's Chinese customer, I can tell you, is the most demanding when it comes to the whole electronic industry. and and digital interconnectivity part of of the automotive experience.
00:57:26
Speaker
That concludes episode one with Benny Oyen. Episode two next week will feature Benny talking about Kia Motors Europe, as well as his experiences in Shanghai with General Motors. Thank you for joining us on today's journey.
00:57:40
Speaker
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. You can also follow on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn.