Scandinavia

"François Pinault then realized that the only way out for him was to forcibly carve out a role that was not planned. He took the plunge, not just metaphorically, and decided to blow up not one link, but the entire chain at once, which involved switching from loading one or two wagons at Saint-Malo to an entire ship in Scandinavia and, importantly, featuring only one intermediary agent instead three, the agent of the sellers. This was feasible for someone who had no experience in maritime transportation because this agent of the Scandinavian exporters also took care of the chartering of the ships. However, this was a transition from one or two wagons to a ship, which is a change in scale in volumes and in money from one not to ten or twenty, but squarely to a hundred."

"François Michelin also knows that he still has much to do to consolidate the foundations of his own house. Everywhere in nearly all the markets that Bibendum has conquered through sheer effort, Bridgestone, the new Japanese tire giant, threatens to establish itself. The Japanese brand supplies half of the Japanese automobile production, which became the world’s largest in 1980 and 1981. In the United States, it quickly delivered to Michelin’s customers at a time when Michelin was out of stock. It plans to purchase the Firestone plant in Nashville, Tennessee, and increase its production capacity to 3,000 truck tires per day in 1983. In Europe, it is laying the groundwork, making contacts, and beginning to supply Scandinavia, Great Britain, and West Germany. It, too, is eyeing Formula 1. The result: a wild growth, as fast or faster than the French group over the past five years, with revenues of three billion dollars in 1980 (nearly seventy percent of which was from tires) achieved with only thirty-one thousand employees, gross self-financing margins of twenty-five percent, and a net profit nearly twice that of Michelin in 1980. Bridgestone, in recent years, has also surpassed General Tire, Uniroyal, BF Goodrich, Continental, Dunlop, and Pirelli to occupy the fourth place worldwide. A formidable challenger."