“What I’d like to see is collaborative effort by at least one manufacturer, one distributor to pilot, cutting returns in half, And to go in and analyze the root cause, accept it as a challenge, do the brainstorming that’s required, and really make a commitment and perhaps lead the rest of the industry down that path.” - Al Stecklein, group president, Global Aftermarket Division, The Gates Group “We go (to India and China) because (those are) going to be the largest consumer markets in the world. And not in 100 years. In five to 10 years. That is why we go there. And while we are there, we want all of us in this room and customers to take advantage of that.” - José Maria Alapont, chairman, president and CEO, Federal-Mogul Corp. “(Management education) is critical. One of the numbers that I heard this morning was the efficiency in the aftermarket repair shop is 60 percent. Fortunately, our ASA members are higher than that when we polled them. Because I’ll tell you right now, at 60 percent, they’re out of business. They just don’t know it yet. And if you have clients that are in the 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent range, they need the management training.” - Denny Kahler, owner of Kahler’s Werkstatt, chairman, the Automotive Service Association (ASA) “We need more diversity in this industry. I don't see a lot of people of color in this room today. First of all, we should recruit people that are different than you and I because it makes sense. It makes basic sense. And we shouldn’t have to have laws that the government tells us that we can’t discriminate.” - John Passante, president and CEO, the Organizational Development Group, Inc. “The challenge that I see for marketing going forward is to grow share of account with fewer larger customers, where brand decisions are increasingly getting made further and further away from the consumer.” - Willi Alexander, president and COO, Parts Depot “In the Hispanic population, we can do signage from wall to wall in Spanish, but if the guy behind the counter or the gal behind the counter doesn’t speak in Spanish to that customer, we’ve all lost. We haven’t gained that much. So it really is a total-system look at how do we market and how do we capture this business more effectively.” - Lisa Kranc, senior VP of marketing, AutoZone “So $45 billion of product is delivered then returned every year in North America. And you consider the cost of bringing it back, the paperwork, the errors, the mistakes, I mean, it’s nonsense.” - Mike Howarth, senior VP, KYB America LLC “The peak-oil doomsayers are starting to pull me over just a little bit. Not so much, again, that we’re running out of oil. And not even so much that China and India, which is so prevalent in everything that we talk about right now, are combining forces to just skew demand of oil, which they are doing. But rather that financial speculation and world politics and an increasingly difficult innovation learning curve of how to get at this oil will combine to drive prices beyond what this industry has been planning for the last few years.” - Derek Kaufman, president, C3 Network | “The aftermarket has to get smarter, has to get sharper, and I think we’re doing it. (Dealers are being inclusive.) To make the aftermarket grow, we need to include.”
- Tom Grothous, Dean, College of Technologies, University of Northwestern Ohio “It’s very hard to have a patent that lasts forever, so eventually people copy your design and your technology. I think it’s incumbent on us as leaders in the industry to continue to design those innovations and be first to market. So maybe you’ve got an 18-month run before someone catches up with you, but that’s the game and you just have to run faster than the rest.” - John Washbish, president, customer relationship management, VP and general manager, Under vehicle Group, Affinia “I think the domestic manufacturers are completely aware that they have to make parts for all the cars. And truthfully, they’ve been doing it in the U.S. longer than in other parts of the world. Over here, if you are going to be in the business, you’ve got to be able to furnish parts for everything.” - Dick Morgan, president and CEO,Aftermarket Auto Parts Alliance, Inc. “I would say, at best, five years ago, the conversations (about China’s role in our industry) were just concepts but as you can see today, they’ve really become realities.” - Mike Gingell, VP of strategic markets, R. L. Polk & Co. "We tried to regulate gas in the ’70s. When we tried to regulate gas prices, all we created was a gas shortage. Nobody remembers the price of gas, but they remember the long gas line. Regulation is not the answer.” - Dan Freeman, president, Automotive Parts Associates, Inc. “Too often, we get so wrapped up in our own business that we don’t hear the customer saying: ‘Hey, make it easy to do business with you and help me be successful in my business and I’ll buy from you. If you’re really good, I’m happy to pay for it.’ I think that’s a fantastic message to focus on. Create value for the customer and they’ll pay for it. We need more of that in our industry.” - Bryan Murphy, CEO, Wrenchead, Inc. “It is a global economy and China’s not the only solution.
There’s a lot of discussion about China...(but) there are other areas in the world that we have to look towards. There will be some hard lessons people will learn if they’re not careful going to China. They can lose a lot of money.” - Mario Recchia, vice president of Marketing and Business Development, Worldpac “The whole issue of proper cataloging, data standardization, is absolutely critical to success in our business. It’s important to have the right part to the right place at the right time. Any kind of delay in the bay for any reason is a big negative for any of our customers. That’s what we as a manufacturer have to focus on.” - Rob Wright, Marketing & Sales, Undercar Express “We’ve never been an industry, because we are so fragmented, of collaborating very well or sharing information or trusting one another. It’s starting now, but this industry is 25 years behind the food and drug industry and some of those other industries in collaboration, information sharing and technology, and until we get there, those technologies (telematics) may be coming, but we are never going to be able to capture them.” - Tim Findlay, Ducker, Findlay, Swoboda & Associates, LLC “In the crash parts side, while our market is totally different than the hard parts side, I see that over time these markets and the characteristics of these markets will become closer. I’m not sure they’ll ever converge...(but) when I come (to GAAS) and I’m exposed to the different types of businesses, I find it of great value.” - Karen Fierst, president, KerenOr Consultants |
