Market


Customer Experience has become the key point of sales during the Covid

Customer Experience
The SARS-Cov 2 pandemic and the related lockdown that was generated in a first phase and, today in a second one, have brought to light several problems left open over the years and above all they have accelerated various processes that would have had longer development and application times. In particular the adoption of the home working, which maybe isn’t yet so smart, has widely spread due...

There will be a “disruptive” change for car dealers as well?

autonomous_guide_car-420x236
Will this pandemic actually be the acceleration of changes in every production sector, and therefore also in the automotive field? Will the car no longer be the same as we known it? Maybe yes, and probably the car is at the moment in the same phase which the typewriter or the Kodak paper experienced in the 80s, that is, we are trying to perfect an old model to the maximum, but we aren’t actually...

FIAT Electric cars (the ones from the old days)

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It is said that Fiat falls behind in programs of models’ innovation, specially about electric and hybrid vehicles. It is said that this is one of the reasons, which led the company – for a long time now known as FCA, the name Fiat only refers to the brand – to the fusion with the PSA group. It’s possible. Fiat has faced tumultuous events since 2000 and the choices taken under...

What do Toyoda, Fehrenbach and Vettel have in common? The good sense!

Toyoda, Fehrenbach, Vettel
In recent weeks, the statements of three people considered – rightly – serious and followed have gone almost unnoticed. Akyo Toyoda is President of Toyota and also President of the Association of Japanese Automobile Manufacturers Franz Fehrenbach is Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Bosch, one of the leading manufacturers of automotive components. Sebastian Vettel needs no introduction It...

Covid 19. At the recovery, will the transport system be the same?

Corona virus
I don’t want to be one of those, too many, who pontificate how the Covid 19 will change the world. Allow me, however, to express a couple of considerations about how, at the end of this stage of restrictions, our behaviour and those around us will change. Let’s start from the car and its use. Until yesterday, the general policy of governments and local administrators was to discourage the...

Coronavirus and the three points of no return for the automotive

One of the fields, which will be more affected from the Coronavirus, is, with any doubt, the heavy industry and, among them, in Europe the automotive. The whole supply chain is suffering the consequences of a sudden collapse in the final demand; the recovery won’t be immediate at all simply because the EU market is a substitutional one and therefore the demand curve is very elastic to negative...

Covid 19 and the famous nautical victim: Evinrude

It is certain that Covid 19 will have a heavy impact worldwide on the single habits and on the economy of companies. It is early to delineate its boundaries and consequences but the first effects are emerging in all sectors. In the world of the nautical industry, the first victim of Covid 19 has been announced, and it isn’t an insignificant name. The Evinrude brand of outboard motors –...

JIT and JIS, how the Covid is changing the Automotive Industry

factory
It has been talking a lot (specially on every social Network) about the COVID-19 impact on everyday life; but it’s interesting to me looking at the effects on the OEM and their organization. For some decades, the automotive has been “merely” an assembly industry. No generalist OEM produces, but is limited to designing and participating in the industrialization of the project; the...

Service and CRM lesson from dentists, gas station attendants and tyre dealers

Service
About twenty years ago, as I started my carrier in the automotive field, I was clearly told that Dealers, would have always done more business on the After Sales and on mortgages. More in general the “Service” would have been the real key point of incomes in a medium and long term. From the simple inspection to the MOT, the tire change, the insurance, the second handed car for the young...

The possible evolution: from workshop to the web

digital
Car dealerships today are one of the few economic realities which haven’t totally understood the Web potential, as well as the social networks one, for their own development in sales and customer management. At least 50% of dealerships uses the same car manufacturer websites with only few adjustments. We often see websites which: Don’t provide any dialog box for customers; Don’t...

The After-Sales and the Digital, are we sure this is the right direction?

officina
In the middle of Digital Revolution, did you think the Post-Sale had been saved? Wrong! After the slogan – far from having been stopped yet – that “if the dealers do not turn to digital are intended to die“, the new fashion 2017 is the “Digital”. Forgive my irony, but if, by chance, you are not digital, be aware that you won’t be able to stay on the market...

What do I have to expect if I choose a hybrid car? (Hybrid series)

supercapacitor
In this search for the perfect engine for our daily needs, we will now focus on the second type of hybrid; the hybrid series. Also in the hybrid series we have two motors, thermal and electric but, unlike the parallel, it is the electric motor that is always connected to the driving wheels; the thermal engine connected to a generator produces energy wich will go both to the electric traction motor...

What do I have to expect if I choose a LPG car?

The second post of the series that wants to clarify which fuels can respond more appropriately to the needs of each of us is focused on one of the most widespread fuel at the time, an alternative to the petrol and diesel. In the last 40 years its diffusion has given origin to an intense planning activity that has let some of our companies become world leaders of the transformation kits. LPG is a fuel,...

Lead generation and CRM: Is it sure they are always essential?

crm
Every year millions of euros are spent, both centrally and as a dealer, to generate leads. Another million euros are used for CRM actions to acquire customers. But what is the generation of “lead” and the CRM? The lead generation “…a marketing action which allows to create a list of possible customers interested in products or services offered by a company.” Whereas for...

Does anybody calculate the damages of the false influencers on the Web Reputation?

Reputation
After 7 years of uninterrupted publications and more than 800 unedited posts published, mostly evergreen, I often want to look at some previous posts. Among the many that I am particularly fond of, and most of them not written by me, there are some that are very current; despite they having been published many years ago. One of these is the post on the WEB REPUTATION; focused on how the web gives space...

The automotive dealers haven’t changed their core business yet

core-business
Excited by the increasing data related to the 2017, there are, however, automotive dealer, multi-brand, and service operators who are sulky and whiny. Of course, a positive signal it’s better than a negative one but, as Catalano (italian comic actor), would say, those numbers hide some truths that many pretend not to see. Dealers complain about the reduction in margins, despite the closure of...

Surveys and market researches: reliable results?

After Brexit, American election day (as well as after every wrong electoral prediction) pollsters and researchers are under discussion. The recurring question is: Is it possible to make mistakes so clamorous? First of all it must be said that political pollster and market researcher do different jobs, only in some way similar. The shared aspect is the focus on a target, the not shared thing is the...

Spare parts bought online, the end of the workshops?

spare parts
In many years who sells new cars can sustain especially with several collateral activities, which in the end, analysing the balance sheets, are not at all collateral. Warehouse, Workshop, Bodywork, Financial Services and Insurance represent much more than “forced activities” to have a mandate. The quickest to look around have turned their company into a multitude of activities on their...

A KPI will save the entire Automotive field or it will bury us?

kpi
There is no sector in which it is possible to disregard a trivial KPI. But let’s start by saying what a KPI is: it is a dashboard. It is a screen, an A4 sheet, which shows the trends of a given variable that, and we will talk about this, has a decisive influence on a business. Let’s start with a prejudicial element that divides an entrepreneurial activity from all the rest. I can know if...

LPG systems, layout and security

LPG
One of the most known indicator that gives us an immediate idea about the safety level provided by a vehicle is the number of stars rated during the Euro NCAP test. The stars are rated to the shock tests passed and to the presence of security – related contents. Thanks to the tightening up both of the tests and the calculation method, today we have on our vehicles an infinitive of electronic devices,...

Electric cars: ready for camping?

electric-cars
Do we have everything? Sleeping bag? Gas stove? Pile? Anti mosquitos? Fans? Suited clothes for winter and summer? In a few words everything you need for a basic camping, we should have and use it at home if we will buy an electric car. You may thing that the hot had got on top of me but no, my friends, the engineers Roberto Barbiero, Ivan Maio and me are ready to sustain what may seem a paradox. If...

Digital Automotive: if you are too far ahead, you may risk to burn yourself

Digital-Automotive
The future is in the digital, actually, it is the present; if your company isnÕt ready to ride the wave of the Digital automotive you are the dinosaur that is disappearing! Now this is a mantra repeated endlessly to the point that someone wonders: “could it be real what they go on telling us in every meeting?” Good question … but maybe not! Only because “everybody” says...

It is enough the name and not the essence. Digital natives and the automotive.

millennials
On this blog, several times, we have dealt with the increasing role that, those who are commonly called “the digital natives“, are playing in the communication, in the image and in the bigger cauldron called Marketing. Everyone in the automotive field, from the simple dealer to the big OEM, has to face them. The questions which, basically, arise are two: Who are the digital natives? Which...

Dusseldorf exhibition 2018: How it went

BOOT-Dusseldorf-2013
It is not simple dealing about the Dusseldorf Boat Show without being repetitive. In the years of crisis, while almost all the other show of the same field was loosing pieces, credibility and visitors, the Dusseldorf Boot grew up until to become the most important in Europe. The progressive breakdown of the Mediterranean shows in Genoa, Barcelona, Paris and London has inevitably brought professionals...

Why should we say thanks for every complaint we received?

complaint
Starting an article with such a title, which means in itself a “strange“, “particular” question which could cause laughter to most, has, actually, a specific basis which we will try to explain. Why would we thank for a complaint? Each of us was a customer, or is one now or will be one and you’ve had a chance to have “first-hand experience” the unexpected eventuality,...

Why does PSA want to buy OPEL and VAUXHALL?

psa
Why does PSA want to buy OPEL and VAUXHALL? A truly intriguing question for the experts, because none of these, except of course ones PSA, are able to answer. And this because it lacks any economic or industrial or commercial evidence of where the winning secret of the takeover. Opel has not exactly a story of success for the last years, and this it was emphasized by Harald Hendrikse of the Morgan...

The list of the most read posts of 2016 on Automotive Space

automotive
Also this year we like to publish the list of most read posts of Automotive Space. You can see there are more differences from the last post on the most read posts in 2015. For this reason we can confirm that Automotive Space doesn’t aim the last news. Unfortunately from one year we are publishing a fewer number of post because we haven’t abroad correspondents…be patient; we are working...

50 years ago, the project which motorized Russia

Togliattigrad1
It is never easy to assess the importance of an event that happened fifty years before, especially when it refers to automotive history. But the collaboration agreement signed between Fiat and the Soviet Ministry of industry for the construction of a car plant in what was then the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (URSS), and which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary, deserves to be remembered. On...

The electric car and the CO2 emission

The electric car and the CO2 emission
More and more the “world wide” politics promotes the development and production of electric cars, shown as a possibility, at least for the mobility, to reduce the pollution. Consequently, car manufacturers are working hard to offer electric vehicles, but I wonder: What certainties have we that electric cars really affect the overall CO2 reduction and what doubts have we still to solve? It is true...

Dusseldorf: cast a glance over nautical world.

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The Dusseldorf Boat Show, which took place during the last week in January, declared the 2016 boating season opened. About the organization of the Exhibition and the attendance figures there is not much to say! The organization is always excellent, a bit rigid (german), but surely efficient and focused on the visitors’ and workers’ needs . Numbers definitely describe it as the first and foremost...