The similarities between commercial and passenger vehicle sales are much closer than many in the automotive industry think.
Just ask Michael Doeg, who has recently moved within the Sime Darby Group from general manager at Hino Truck Distributors to group retail general manager for its Auckland passenger car dealerships.
Those dealerships include Continental Cars in Newmarket and Takapuna (BMW) and City Nissan in Takapuna.
“Everybody tells you commercial and passenger are so different.
“Some things are different but some are very much the same across both environments,” Doeg says.
One of the biggest differences is the company acts as distributor and retailer in commercial, while in passenger it just owns the dealerships.
However, Doeg says the fundamentals of operating the two businesses are the same.
“We sell vehicles, parts and labour in both businesses.
“It’s important to make sure customer satisfaction rates are high.
“At the end of the day it’s not a complex business but it’s not an easy business either.”
Most of Doeg’s experience has been in passenger vehicles with various roles at GM Holden before he became sales and marketing manager at Isuzu for GM and then moved to Sime Darby as general manager of Hino.
Doeg says he “loved” his time as general manager at Hino.
“There’s a great bunch of people in the commercial business and long-standing relationships with customers that span decades.
“One thing working at Hino did do was solidify my belief that good processes will underpin any business from a volume and profitability perspective.”
Although the aim was to sell as many trucks as possible and make a fair margin, Doeg says there were significant changes to the landscape between 2016 and 2017.
“There’s been a significant market share increase for Fuso. At Hino we’re happy with our volume and profitability for 2017.”
New Zealand has a fairly small market for trucks by global standards and nearly every player has a presence.
“Hino Japan is very aware of that and spent a lot of time in New Zealand with us.”
Doeg says the role at Hino is a lot more hands-on than roles he’s had previously.
”Hino on an annual basis sells about 700 trucks. You’re far closer to transactions at the coalface.
“There’s an emotional investment many commercial customers have in their truck fleets, although the key driver is fit-for-purpose specification.“
Move to passenger sales
As for his move to the passenger side, Doeg says it was an obvious step for him to take.
“I was needed in another part of the business, which I felt I could contribute to. it was also a great career move for me while also remaining in the Sime Darby Group.
“The customers are slightly different sometimes but not all the time.”
Sime Darby’s mix of brands is varied, with Ferrari, BMW, Porsche, Audi, Volkswagen and Nissan dealerships spread across sites in Newmarket and Takapuna.
“It actually gives us some strength with that mix. It’s always useful to have some visibility in different parts of the market.
“For someone who’s always been interested in cars, to be involved in all these brands is a privilege.
“We want to make sure we represent those brands as best as possible for our customers.”
Overall customer experience as the key to success, Doeg says.
“You can sell a customer a car and have a good relationship with them in sales, but if they don’t back it up with aftersales and service, typically the customer is not going to come back to you.
“Service is just as important. Overall, a dealership couldn’t function without all the departments at our dealerships working together.
“If one of those departments isn’t working, it affects the overall health of the dealership very quickly.”
As for the future, Doeg isn’t ruling out adding more dealerships if it makes economic sense, including outside of Auckland.
“We have very good brands and very prominent dealerships around the Auckland region. We’re in the business of dealerships. There’s no reason not to look at opportunities outside of the Auckland market, if they make sense.”
And just how the market will perform moving forward is yet to be seen, with fastpaced growth since 2009.
“Everybody has been running pretty hard to keep up with market growth from a product perspective across trucks and cars.
“Will it continue at its current rate? My personal opinion is at some stage we will see a little bit of flattening in the market.
“When or how that will happen is a bit of an unknown.”
Doeg also acknowledges the automotive world is changing, with electric and increasingly autonomous vehicles on the horizon.
“We are reliant on the product provided by the distributor. It seems to be slowly moving forward.
“There are hybrid or electric options in all of our brands.”
