Yokohama Canada Reorganises Consumer, Commercial Businesses

Yokohama Tire Canada has reorganised its internal structure by creating separate commercial and consumer business units to manage the sales and marketing of the two respective product lines. This revised structure is intended to better support dealers and assist is sharpening the focus of both the consumer and commercial businesses.

The two business units will, says Yokohama Tire Canada, be headed by “a new generation of executives who will drive growth and market development for each category.” Heading up the consumer operations will be business unit director Jonathon Karelse, while John Overing has been named business unit director for commercial tyres. Both appointments took effect on January 1, and the two men report directly to Yokohama Canada president Éric Dedoyard.

“We are creating a more effective and responsive operating structure that will increase the ability of both business segments to grow,” said Dedoyard. “The new structure will allow us to better serve our entire customer base by leveraging the skill sets of our people across all categories of our product portfolio.” Dedoyard added that the organisational change means tyre retailers will deal with a single, unified Yokohama sales and marketing team.

Because some dealers handle both consumer and commercial lines, Yokohama says the two business units will work closely together to capitalise on synergies while sharing marketing and customer service resources. The new structure will see an internal realignment of personnel including business development and inside sales positions for each unit, and the reorganised sales and marketing operations will be supported by the company’s existing administration, distribution and technical departments.

Yokohama says the Canadian operation’s new structure represents Yokohama Canada’s commitment to Yokohama Rubber’s ‘Grand Design 100’ global sales initiative created to drive sales growth throughout the decade.