Jaguar Land Rover's ambitious ReImagine Strategy is coming into play, with the goal of having a more digital, green, and electrified future. Two announcements recently are major steps in this plan.
Jaguar Land Rover's ambitious ReImagine Strategy is coming into play, with the goal of having a more digital, green, and electrified future. Two announcements recently are major steps in this plan.
The first announcement was an invitation for their suppliers to align with their 2030 sustainability commitments regarding carbon emissions. Their targets are approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi), with the goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and going carbon net-zero by 2039 across the whole of JLR’s supply chain, products, and operations.
Now, JLR is taking the step of asking their Tier 1 suppliers (products, services, and logistics) to set their decarbonization pathway, with reporting and transparency benchmarks along the way. In the supply pyramid for auto manufacturers, there are four tiers. At the top is the “OEM,” the original equipment manufacturer, which people outside the industry would call the “car company” or the “automaker.” In our case, this is Land Rover. Tier 1 suppliers supply finished components to Land Rover, like the braking system or the infotainment system. Their suppliers are the Tier 2 suppliers – the companies who make the touchscreen for the infotainment system, or brake calipers for the braking system. Their suppliers, Tier 3, in turn, are the people who make parts for them – the semiconductors that run the stereo, or the company that makes the hardware to build a brake system.
By requiring their Tier 1 suppliers to hold to these decarbonization standards, they are de facto applying the same standards to Tier 2 and Tier 3 suppliers, leading to their plan for overall net-zero by 2039. The entire supply network is over 5,000 companies to create parts for both brands.
Meanwhile, this relatively rapid push towards new technologies means that a lot of Jaguar Land Rover employees need to learn how to work with vehicles very different from what they work with now. With these ReImagine goals in mind, JLR has announced a global upskilling drive, in which 29,000 employees, many at the retailer level, are going to be given the skills to work with the new generation of coming vehicles.
Over 60% of JLR’s global retail staff need to be upskilled to learn the new systems present on the newer, electrified vehicles, and over the next three years, just that will happen – the Future Skills Programme will see them going through education programs for these connected and electrified features. By the end of the year, most service technicians globally will have received electrification training, as over 80% of JLR’s global franchised dealers offer electrified vehicle services.
At the factories, plant employees will learn how to safely assemble electrified vehicles. The engineering teams will also be retrained from internal combustion systems to learn how to engineer electrified, digital, and autonomous vehicles. For example, diesel emissions engineers might now learn how to build battery cells.
As governments around the world require electrified technology in the marketplace, and with huge shifts in the marketplace overall, these steps are a necessity for Jaguar Land Rover to remain relevant and profitable as Land Rover their 75th anniversary in 2023 and looks ahead to a long future.
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