GLOBALISATION! This term should allow you to achieve a product that is in line with the tastes of the “entire world”, with the underlying principle of listening to your customers. Are Lancia and Chrysler getting to grips with this term? Do they listen to the large mass of customers who are trying to convey their expectations? If not, what’s missing and what will you do to address this issue?
Lancia and Chrysler use an array of communication channels on a global scale, to communicate with their customers or with car enthusiasts. A few years ago, the only way to liaise with the headquarters was to go to a dealer or write letters or faxes to contacts within the Company who were difficult to get hold of. We now live in the age of web 2.0, we are all connected and always “on the ball”, so car manufacturers had no choice but to get on board or be left behind! As I said, we use a large number of channels: the institutional website, LABCIA, with its satellite mini-sites for specific projects/products and the world of social networks, where Lancia is present on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Followgram.
Just think: every resource working for the Lancia Brand has a Find Lancia on reference in their e-mail signature. Our team in charge of Digital activities is constantly developing, continuously searching for the most efficient and fastest way to communicate with our Customers and fans. In short, we are not in hiding…
@AlfaCareIt, @FiatCareIt…when will @ChryslerCareIt be launched? Will a @ChryslerCareEu ever exist? What are, more generally, your plans in terms of Customer Care presence on your Social Network profiles?
As recently stated on your pages by Ms. Adriana Quaglia (Customer Innovation Manager for the EMEA area of Fiat Group Automobiles and Chrysler), the choice of brands on Twitter was not made according to the logic of car sales, but rather according to the number of discussions and conversations on the web. The FGA Customer Care has launched its activities on Twitter with Fiat and Alfa Romeo, but we will also extend these activities to cover other brands, including Lancia.
In Europe, the Chrysler brand is not marketed except in the UK and Ireland, and so there are no plans to implement a dedicated “CareIt” profile.
AS at the beginning, two years ago, we faced the North African problem. Research has just been published, mentioning a market in that area of 1 million cars in 2013. It would be interesting to know what Lancia/Chrysler’s strategies are in those politically unstable areas. What do you expect from these markets, over the next three years, in terms of percentages and volumes?
As Head of Lancia/Chrysler for the EMEA region, I am very interested in the development and implementation of effective commercial strategies in Africa and the Middle East. Based on specific business opportunities or – more simply – thanks to Lancia’s or Chrysler’s well rooted presence on a market, the two brands are distributed rationally across the territories in question. For instance, the Lancia brand is present in countries such as Morocco, Algeria and Turkey, whereas the Chrysler brand is present in the Middle-Eastern area. These are very interesting markets, which are experiencing a vibrant historical period, which is definitely open and geared towards development.
Are there new job opportunities in the automotive industry for willing Managers or young graduates in the EMEA area? If so, what and how?
Definitely. Without moving too far away from the context I am most familiar with, I can tell you that the organisations of the Fiat-Chrysler Groups, with offices distributed all over the world, allows experienced Managers or young graduates to find interesting job opportunities with extensive international scope, for example.
Specifically, all the company’s functional departments are situated in the EMEA area alone: from marketing to sales, from design to research and development, from production to logistics, and much more.
So, despite the crisis which has hit the entire sector, I still see plenty of career opportunities in the automotive industry, in the company I work for but also in other, competitor OEMs and material suppliers and service providers.
In addition, the collaboration between the Company and Institutions could bring students closer to the labour market and their passions straight away. For instance, Turin was where the first Automotive Engineering Degree Course was held. Fiat and the TurinPolytechnicUniversity created a new dedicated campus in 1998, the only campus in Italy and among the first in the world to be devoted specifically to teaching and research in the automotive industry. This now consolidated study programme “turns out” new graduates every year, who are trained and competent, and who often find the first professional employment position of their career here at Fiat.
