Tough times but light ahead for Jaguar Land Rover

Times are tough at Jaguar Land Rover and no-one knows it better than Mark Cameron, the British brand’s local chief for the past nine months.

Cameron’s been living a nightmare since he landed in Australia, as the combination of a global downturn and troubles Down Under led to a sales slump, staff cuts, discount deals and bad-news reports back to head office in the UK.

But now, with the all-new Range Rover Evoque rolling into showrooms and more models including the born-again Land Rover Defender to come, Cameron is bullish about a Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) revival after a re-set and re-focus for the rest of 2019 and beyond.

“It’s been an interesting nine months,” Cameron admits to carsales in a rare one-on-one interview.

“But the fundamentals of Australia still look pretty good. It’s a year of launches and growth.”

Cameron came to Australia to right a listing ship, re-focussing everything from pricing and specifications to the dealer network in less than a year.

“We’ve been in corrective mode. Getting the right product on the ground. And preparing for our launches, as we have a busy year ahead,” he says.

Read the new Range Rover Evoque Review

“One of my key priorities has been simplifying the offer. Really getting back to basics. Getting back to the sweet spot of what Australian customers want to buy.

“We have taken a lot of action. We’ve had to take some painful decisions. But if you look out the window… we’re all going through this correction.”

So, what went wrong?

“The premium market has been declining pretty much since the middle of last year. Consumer confidence has been eroded,” he says.

“We were over-stocked, with many more months of cars than we needed… If dealers are overstocked and cutting each other’s throats, it’s a race to the bottom on price.”

It also meant a significant downturn in sales, something not helped by the lead-up to the Federal election, a slump in capital-city house prices, and more.

“All that together has caused this ‘just wait and see’ situation. And when you’re in the luxury sector, where it’s discretionary spending… [Then] you start to see big corrections.

“Adjusting your pipeline in such a quick corrective timeline is quite challenging,” Cameron explained.

Drilling into the detail, Cameron talks first about Jaguar.

He admits there were too many models, that Australia like the UK (although not to the same extent) has been moving away from diesel engines in passenger cars, and that the line-up needed to be cut and adjusted.

Cameron focusses on the electric I-PACE as the flagship of the brand, and the car that points to a promising future.

“When Jaguar was great in the 1950s and 60s it was a leader, and I-PACE signals that we’re getting back to being a leader. Not just having me-too products,” he commented.

“It’s bringing distinctive product through, and finding the white space. That’s the excitement. To be first to market as the first of the recognised manufacturers shouldn’t be underestimated. I-PACE is important as a flag waver for the brand and also, really importantly, as a milestone on our journey to position Jaguar."

Cameron sees a change across both sides of the JLR business, most notably on diesel.

“Jaguar has shifted much more to petrol, and quicker. Land Rover is still 78 per cent diesel. But a modern-day Euro6 diesel already meets 2021 standards and is pretty good.

“So the reality and the perception is at odds. But that’s life and we have to navigate through these situations.”

Part of that navigation is down to Evoque, a vehicle that Cameron enjoys discussing.

“We expect Evoque to be quite a significant shift to petrol.”

But it’s more than that.

“Evoque is hugely significant. We’ve got thousands of customers in Australia who bought that car. [And] we’ve just released details on Discovery Sport: a lot of technological improvements; and a massive step up.

“The battleground for the premium space is technology and the interior. That’s where we need to spend money. And that’s what we’ve done with Discovery Sport.”

So the products are the key, and Cameron admits that JLR is going to get lucky with its newcomers.

“Sometimes you find yourself in a position where there is not much news. You just find yourself in a temporary flat spot, but you quickly get out of it. The pipeline is full.”

And topping it up is the most-anticipated new Land Rover in generations.

“The big news, what we’re preparing for, is Defender. Just as I-PACE is a flag-waver for Jaguar, it’s the standard bearer [for Land Rover].

“It is the biggest opportunity, but also the biggest risk. It’s probably the hardest job we have. We cannot lose anything that makes Defender so loved, but then also thoroughly modernise it,” Dameron opines

“It cannot just appeal to the heart, it has to appeal to the head. We’ve really got to steer this path where we are respectful of the past, but conquest a whole new audience.

“I think it will be amazing for Australia. It really hits the sweet spot. If there isn’t a car more suited to the Australian psyche, I don’t know what it is.”

Cameron says it’s too early to get into Defender details, even if JLR has been deliberately leaking pictures of the car to build a slow burn for showrooms.

“We’re expecting to launch it here in the first quarter of next year. That's cars on the ground,” is his only commitment.

Further into the future, Cameron says JLR is now moving heavily into electrification but without losing any of its internal-combustion focus.

“I’ve never seen such a time of excitement in where it’s going, but also the thirst for R&D. We definitely still see a dual world of ICE [internal combustion engines] and electric for some time yet.

“There still will be a role for combustion engines for some time yet. So we have to make sure we invest in the areas of current technologies, as well as working on the future. Electric is part of the conversation.

“It’s not just about the technology in the cars, it's about how the pace of consumer change will go. You have to cover the bases or you can find yourself in a Kodak situation,” he says, referring to the dominant film maker failing to predict or adjust to the arrival of digital pictures and going out of business.

Cameron says JLR reported a profit in the last quarter of last year, a sign of the turnaround in the company, and that Australia is tracking well in readiness for an upturn in consumer confidence.

“We’ve made sure our demand is in line with the stocks. We need a return in confidence, and to see the downturn in the housing market has bottomed out.

“At the end of the day, people like to buy things. We’ve got to go from waiting-to-see to ready-to-go,” Cameron concluded.