More Than Basics Required To Succeed

If all you do is focus on the basics, you will not succeed, says Scott Mackie.
Speaking at the Automotive Industries Association of Canada’s Automotive Conference for Executives being held in Ottawa today and tomorrow, Mackie, who until a recent move to the vehicle side of General Motors was the global director of ACDelco, says that the requirements for the independent distributor to succeed are growing beyond just being able to offer products and price.
“My concern would be that if the focus remains with the independent solely on the basics, that basically lowers the independent to compete with the Chinese brake rotors.
“Somebody asked me the other day, why GM doesn’t just buy all [the Chinese brake parts manufacturers]. Well, they provide a great cost and the quality can be very good, but they don’t produce training, they don’t have cataloguing, they don’t have telematics.” Mackie said that jobbers who don’t recognize the importance of those developments might not have a positive outlook.
“If they don’t start worrying about these things that will differentiate people in the aftermarket, they are going to have a very difficult time.”
Mackie says that the main focus of the extension of “the basics,” should be an increased focus on customer retention and management systems, brand image, encouraging the attraction of skilled technicians, and working to create lean operations.
“Which companies will separate themselves in the aftermarket? First off they are executing lean. This is a very distant word in the aftermarket,” said Mackie. He related an example of an ACDelco distributor–which incidentally sold as much as all his equivalents in Canada combined–who became the focus of an efficiency exercise.
Mackie says that ACDelco’s “lean guy” identified a million dollars in savings in the shipping area inside of half a day.
The competition for the business of the service provider and the consumer is going to become increasingly strenuous, but it is not all doom and gloom.
Mackie says that although the competition from the car dealer can be considerable, competing with the aftermarket will likely never be the main focus.
“For the majority of our dealers, we have 7,500 in the U.S. You could probably find less than 5% who are concerned about selling parts. As things have become tough on the front floor, selling vehicles, they are paying a heck of a lot of attention to customer pay business in the back shop.
The majority of the dealers are focus on one thing and one thing alone and that is selling cars and trucks.”