The integration of McLaren and Forseven – which had around 700 employees – sparked a reorganisation, and Collins acknowledges “some of our colleagues departed as part of that”. Those included McLaren’s then CEO Michael Leiters and chief designer Tobias Sühlmann, both of whom are now at Porsche. Collins says he was impressed by the “amazing people in McLaren”, adding that “the depth of technical knowledge is phenomenal. It’s a young workforce compared to some other firms, with very high technical talent.”
Collins attributes McLaren’s struggles in recent years to process, not personnel, explaining: “We didn’t take decisions fast enough. We didn’t make complicated things simple to make things faster. Like a lot of car companies, we have a lot of acronyms, and I believe passionately in plain language.”
Collins admits that “different people embrace change in different ways”, adding: “The reality of the business and where it was at was not as well known as it should have been, and there was maybe a false comfort around the condition of the company. We needed to do things urgently to get to where we need to be, and we still need to act with urgency, because we have to grow this company.
“We’re in a privileged position of having the financial means to go and pursue that opportunity. It’s more exciting to have a bold ambition than it is a half-filled ambition.”
Targeted investment
The £1.5bn invested by CYVN is going towards “new product and capabilities to execute that new product”, says Collins. There has been a major overhaul of McLaren’s IT systems, for instance: “We’re determined to grow in a super-efficient way and not become stuck with legacy data systems slowing us down. When you see what Chinese companies have built, we tend to think about the product, but the underlying systems and technology they’re using unlocks their speed to market.”
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