Tuesday Snippets – Saab corporate edition

UPDATE below.

There have been several good stories coming out of Sweden in the last few days. Here’s a round-up.

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The Swedish press made a pretty big fuss last November over the fact that Saab had to pass on renewing 200 temporary workers’ employment contracts just before Christmas. Saab were managing their workforce according to their expected production rate, though it was implied to some extent in the press that these people were laid off.

Anyway, DN.se reported today that 55 of those workers will be employed again, and whilst the article doesn’t say when, one could guess that it’ll be pretty quickly. Saab need the extra hands on deck “to cope with production”.

30 of those 55 will be on new temporary contracts and the remainder will be permanently employed.

UPDATE: I received an email from Swedish Radio today, telling me that the employment arrangements were made before Christmas, so these employees are quite possibly already back on the job!

Great news.

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I wrote a few days ago about a large Swedish employer, NCC, who had placed Saab back amongst choices on their company car list. This was a great show of faith and a tremendous boost to Saab’s potential corporate sales in Sweden.

Another large employer in Sweden, Alfa Laval, has joined them. From DI.se:

These days, it is [certain] that Alfa Laval make Saab into a selectable [brand] for their 1700 car drivers.

“I forbade employees to buy the Saab when only ethanol car was available, then it would [eventually] not count as a green car,” said Peter Bunke, global manager for Alfa Laval’s official vehicles in 56 countries.

With the new Saab models that [have come to] market, the Trollhätten brand is again an option for employees. The residual value guarantee that Saab dealers exhibited is crucial to Saab being an option for Alfa Laval.

“Of course, it is important, the residual value is the most important parameter, it is much more important than the purchase price, as we look at total cost,” he says.

I think there’s something in that for Saab and a few other markets as well.

1) Supply what the market wants. And 2) Everyone who has some skin in the game should take some measures to support it.

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Teknikens Varld conducted an interview with Jan-Ake Jonsson late last year and the resulting article has recently come online.

Swedes can read it here. The rest of can benefit from one particular website that seems to take Googletranslations and pass them off as their own.

It’s a great background piece on a wonderful Saab guy.

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