TOYOTA'S PRESS ASKS: WHY CANT WE ALL GET ALONG?

If dealers take care of their customers and automakers take care of their dealers, everyone will succeed, said Toyota chief operating officer Jim Press Saturday at the opening session. “We realized early that our expertise in engineering and manufacturing does not translate into the retail world. We don’t have retail experience. . .that’s why we have dealers.”

Press credited GM with taking the lead in promoting the industry after the September 11 terrorist attacks and praised dealers as “freedom fighters—not only for our industry—but for the nation’s economy.”

To Press, who got his start at his uncle’s dealership, three issues now challenge the industry: savvy, empowered customers; overcapacity and rising business costs; and activist groups and government agencies concerned about safety and environmental issues. For customers, manufacturers must make “quality products with high resale value. Without them, all a dealer can do is try to make a bad situation better.” And automakers should work harder to keep dealer profits from being squeezed. Said Press, when “you are fighting every day to make some money, how much time and effort can you spend assuring employee and customer satisfaction?”

Manufacturers could help dealers by cutting expenses, said Press. Such steps include improving order-to-delivery times, creating flexible factories to cut inventories, building vehicles people actually want, and shooting for an average 20-day supply.

Dealers, manufacturers, and their associations also need to work together to counter onerous legislation and embrace advances in safety and cleaner vehicles, added Press, who just completed a year as chairman of the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers.