Bandag ‘Adapts’ its Organisation

Bandag has confirmed the news that more than a dozen staff members, including director of sales Peter De Cabooter, have left its European organisation, as was first published at www.tyrepress.com. According to the international retreading system supplier 16 employees have left the company. These people were said to be mainly operating in South European and CIS countries although some Brussels based personnel were also affected.

“Some call this restructuring, we prefer to describe this as right sizing for our future business model and allocating resources where they should be,” Bandag said in its statement. “Most of the job losses were part of a longer process of fine-tuning our organisation for future developments.

Former director of sales, Peter De Cabooter, is said to have decided to leave the company in order to join his family and run a business outside of the tyre market in Wyoming, USA. Bandag reports that Mr Lennart will continue to offer support for specific projects.

In terms of sales growth and profitability, 2005 has been a challenging year for Bandag with most markets witnessing a fall in sales. The company attributed this to the general market trend in the European tyre business.

Another explanation for this is the fact that Bandag lost dealers in Germany and Austria. These dealers left because they wanted to follow a multi-brand strategy and of course took a significant proportion of Bandag’s volum with them. “We respect the decision of these companies to pursue a different strategy. We believe in life that you can’t have your cake and eat it.”

On the bright side, Bandag reports that its Eurofleet business experienced a 25 per cent increase in revenue. Eurofleet now accounts for 20 per cent of Bandag’s revenue in Europe and continues to expand, the company added.

Two part strategy

For the future Bandag says it has two strategies in Europe – continue to support and develop its strategic dealer network and to increase its presence in the fleet business through its Eurofleet initiative.

“Our strategy is clear on the dealer level: a single dealer concept. We lower fleet costs through a unique package of products and programmes. Our franchise value is translated in dealer support in terms of training, sales support, technical service, etc,” the statement read.

Bandag reports that it has hired a lot of new staff in the field in recent years and that these people are now “trained and ready” to support fleets and dealers, especially in Germany.