Nearly a year into his job, Honda Motor Co CEO Takahiro Hachigo plans a back-to-the-future shift at the Japanese automaker, driving clearer demarcation lines between those who develop cars and those who sell them, two senior company insiders told Reuters.The thrust of the changes, to be unveiled by Hachigo in Tokyo on Wednesday, will be to reduce the influence of sales and marketing teams on car design, reversing moves by previous chief Takanobu Ito, the people said.
"Over the years, our product development process became overly complex and slow, involving a huge number of engineers and sales and marketing people," said one of the two Honda executives. As a result, "we began producing watered down, uninspiring, what you might call designed-by-committee, cars."
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