North America
Goodyear’s retread plant in North Bay (Ontario, Canada) is believed to be North America’s first Off-The-Road (OTR) tyre retreading facility to become ISO 9002 registered. The North Bay facility is Canada’s largest OTR retread operation.
Robert J. Keegan (53), one time top manager with Kodak, assumed the position as Goodyears‘s president and chief operating officer in Akron on 1st of October, making him the deputy and named successor of chairman Sam Gibara (61). According to group publications, Keegan will be responsible for day to day business, whereas Gibara will be more concerned with strategy.
In the hot cure field Michelin is the European market leader with its product Remix. “Recamic”, Michelin’s cold cure process six years in the making, is still eyed with curiosity.In Europe Michelin has been a strong competitor for many years and has a current market share in truck tyre retreading of 23 p.c., which it intends to raise to 30 p.c. by the year 2005.
For the first time the volumes of Michelin tyres sold in North America (incl. Mexico) exceeded those sold in Europe.
Goodyear and retreader/truck tyre dealer Treadco have announced the formation of a joint venture company, called Wingfoot Commercial Tire Systems. Ownership is 60/40 Goodyear/Treadco. Wingfoot will be the world’s largest network of cv tyre outlets and truck tyre retreading facilities, with coverage coast-to-coast.
American trends, schemes that have proved successful on the other side of the big pond, will spill over to Europe after a short delay. That has always been so. So watch out for the letters FCSD and remember that they stand for Ford Customer Service Division. The car giant has just started a strong advertising campaign in North America, introducing to the public “America’s Newest Tire Store”, a network of 2,400 of the current 5,000 Ford and Lincoln Mercury dealers. According to a Ford spokesman, this is the latest step in providing customers with everything they really need, and all at one stop. The Ford and Lincoln dealers, he claimed, have suitable business premises, sufficient relevant expertise and the scope to offer competitive prices – with the express advance warning that Ford has no intention to be cheap but will market tyres “at a fair price”. Tyre manufacturers build tyres to Ford specifications, the spokesman explained, and it would therefore only be a natural progression for the company to market “original replacement parts”. Thus only original equipment suppliers will be able to take part in the Ford replacement business. To give the project a kick-start the company currently runs a lavish and expensive TV campaign (costs are not disclosed), later to be supported and partly replaced by radio advertising and direct mailing. Carl Bergmann, Customer Service Operations Manager, can see no point in sending customers away in future when they want to buy tyres. And these are certainly not empty words: In July 1998 the Ford organisation sold a mere 700 tyres, the figure for this July was 97,000, and that is only a start. The sales target for the current year is one million tyres, three million in the year 2000, to be doubled again to six million units in 2001, at least according to a Ford Motor Co. spokesman talking to the press. These are large numbers indeed, but not unrealistically so, because if each of the currently participating 2,400 dealers only sells one set of tyres per day, the three-million barrier will be breached.
The differentiation within the Goodyear brand, which has been most conspicuous in North America, will soon be a thing of the past. On Thursday Gibara declared in front of analysts in New York that the Goodyear brand will in future only be a premium brand; the group’s range will be complemented by Dunlop (medium brand) and Kelly (economy/budget brand).
Nissan has confirmed that it is currently producing 1.35 million cars, which is 10 per cent less than last year. This amounts to the company’s seventh recorded loss in the past eight years. C.O.E. Carlos Ghosn, who engineered the turnaround for Michelin in North America, is currently preparing a restructuring plan which will entail the loss of 21,000 jobs, or 14% of its worldwide workforce, by the year 2003. In the US, 1,000 jobs (10%) will go by March 2001, while in Japan, there are plans to close four factories.
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