Automotive Aftermarket Players Switch to Competitive Intelligence Strategies
22 June 1998
Frost & Sullivan: Automotive Aftermarket Players Switch to Competitive Intelligence Strategies to Stay Ahead of Competition
NEW YORK, June 22 -- The automotive aftermarket is
experiencing structural changes, due in part to customer preferences and
financial abilities. With the various segments in a state of flux, it is more
important than ever to know what consumers want and when they need it.
Therefore, companies throughout the world are now installing business
intelligence systems to monitor competitors, customers, suppliers, markets and
trends relevant to their interests.
To provide senior level executives with new tools, techniques, ideas and
strategies necessary to successfully address the major challenges and
opportunities facing the automotive aftermarket, Frost & Sullivan will
assemble the nation's leading competitive intelligence and benchmarking
authorities for its Twenty-Fourth Annual Automotive Aftermarket Industry
Conference, July 21-22, 1998, and its Market Engineering Management Seminar,
July 20. Long regarded by industry players as THE aftermarket conference, this
not-to-be-missed event is specifically designed for companies in the
automotive aftermarket to provide information that will help improve your
company's bottom line for years to come.
Through formal presentations, informal networking and roundtable
discussions, key speakers will share their knowledge about successful
strategies, pitfalls to avoid and market opportunities. David Peace, director
of global aftermarket operations at Visteon Automotive Systems, will present
"Building and Maintaining Profitable Aftermarket Programs." In this session
you will learn how to establish brand loyalty, establish a loyal customer
base, and how to monitor and ensure customer satisfaction.
The future of the do-it-yourself (DIY) market has been the focal point of
much discussion in recent years. Although the DIYer will continue to be a
customer, companies who rely on this market segment must expand their customer
base in include installers in order to maintain growth. Stephen J. Alexander,
president of Automotive In-Store Marketing, Inc., will explain how to keep the
DIY customer and develop your installer customer base, and how to integrate
and address the needs of both markets in his discussion, "Beyond the DIY
Market -- Expanding Your Market Opportunities."
Many companies are not going to wait until the next century to find out
whether their trading partners are Year 2000 compliant. Retailers,
distributors and manufacturers are building highly integrated and
interdependent supply chains, so they will replace vendors and suppliers who
threaten their operations by being "millennium impaired." Eileen Pso from
Javasoft, a division of Sun Microsystems, will highlight "The Car and
Computerization: Year 2000 Problem." This discussion will show you why you
need to have your systems Year 2000 compliant and ready for testing with your
business partners by next January.
The conference will be preceded by an intense, full-day Market Engineering
workshop, "Growth in the Automotive Aftermarket: Utilizing the Market
Engineering System to Accelerate Growth and Identify Market Opportunities,"
July 20. Led by David Frigstad, chairman of Frost & Sullivan, this seminar
covers the Market Engineering System and how you can use this system to
identify opportunities to keep your company growing faster than competitors
and the market. It is a systematic, measurement-based system which integrates
market challenges, company goals, market research, marketing strategy,
implementation and monitoring into a practical and useful methodology that can
benefit each and every department in a company.
Both the conference and the seminar will be held at the Hotel
Intercontinental in Chicago, Illinois. Bob Ahrens, retired from the Ford
Corporation after a distinguished career of over 35 years, will chair the
conference. As an added bonus, all conference attendees will receive a
complementary copy of Frost & Sullivan's best-selling training manual,
"Customer Engineering," a practical yet strategic approach to real marketing
problems and the strategies necessary to create a highly profitable sales
system in the automotive aftermarket through measurements of effectiveness
that ensure every project a company undertakes has an impact on their bottom
line.
This conference is sponsored by The Dialog Corporation and The Polk
Company, and endorsed by Aftermarket Business and The Auto Channel. For more
information on attending, sponsorship, exhibiting, advertising, or future
speaker possibilities, please call or write:
Sales Inquiries: Devin Brown cfsales@frost.com
Press Inquiries: Rachel Putter rputter@frost.com 650-237-4385
Sponsorships & Exhibits Gary Robbins grobbins@frost.com
Frost & Sullivan
90 West Street
New York, NY 10006
Tel: 212-964-7000
Fax: 212-619-0831
Visit Frost & Sullivan's Web site: http://www.frost.com/conferences.
Conference: 2968-06 Date: July 21-22, 1998 Price: $1250
Seminar: 2970-06 Date: July 20, 1998 Price: $750
Conference & Seminar Package: Price: $1850