Why Jaguar Land Rover has decided change is needed

Jaguar Land Rover's decision to shed 4,000 jobs comes after the carmaker has travelled down a very rough road.

The company has seen sales fall in all of its major markets and has been dealing with the consequences of a devastating cyber-attack that paralysed production last year.

At the same time, it has invested billions in an effort to reinvent itself for an electric future, in which it is likely to face intense competition from aggressively expanding Chinese brands.

One of the main concerns for JLR is China. Not so long ago, it was seen as a land of opportunity for western carmakers, where the rapidly expanding middle classes seemed to have an inexhaustible appetite for upmarket foreign-badged vehicles.

JLR, along with other European brands such as BMW, Audi and Mercedes Benz, was all too willing to meet that demand, at a time when the European market was extremely crowded and growth hard to find.

Today, things are very different. The past decade has seen rapid growth among domestic Chinese carmakers, firmly backed by their government, which has been determined to make the country a leading player in electric vehicles.

This has created an environment of intense competition, in which local manufacturers have rapidly raised the bar in terms of technology and development speed.

That, combined with a slowdown in the Chinese economy and a reduction in sales overall, has made China a much more difficult market for European brands.