Jason Best started his career as Canadian sales manager at Coulter Radiator in 1993. He joined the Spectra Premium team in 1997 as national sales manager, when Coulter Radiator joined the Spectra Group. Since 2004, Best has been in charge of all sales and marketing projects as vice-president sales and marketing — aftermarket. In this week’s exclusive Executive Interview, Best talks with aftermarketNews.com about new technology, as well as the critical importance of inventory management and quality assurance at Spectra Premium. 
We hear a lot in the aftermarket about the importance of brand, but it can mean different things to different people. What does brand mean to Spectra Premium and how does the company communicate its brand value throughout the aftermarket distribution channel?
Spectra Premium as a brand to our channel partners, their customers and end consumers may represent varying benefits, yet quality assurance is the message we aim to convey. With every part we manufacture, every application we seek to secure coverage, every attribute, feature and benefit we offer through our parts information management system, we seek only for our customers and their customers to know when they purchase, resell or install a Spectra Premium product they are getting a quality assured part. Our ability to maintain a premium brand product in the aftermarket resonates throughout our organization and is a daily key focus of continuous improvement. We seek to help gain value for shop owners, service writers, DIY users and technicians alike, so they can count on Spectra Premium products for a consistent quality installation.
In today’s economy, people discuss more of their service options or DIY experiences within their circle of friends, family, neighbors, etc. Service eventually wins and in most cases is a direct result of a repeat customer. In our industry the repeat sale opportunity that exists with each vehicle that rolls into a service bay or to a retail outlet has to be looked at as a social networking opportunity. Independent shops, affiliated shops or retail stores can all benefit from this mentality of a shared experience and installing or selling quality brands that instill consumer confidence that benefit all involved. The consumer feels safe and secure installing quality brand name products that are backed from several guarantees and assurances, the shop owner feels protected in his investment in purchasing these products knowing the support is there before during and after the sale and the technician feels they not only sold the product at a premium, they sold a premium part that has the best interest of the consumer at hand.
The use of low-cost country sourcing has increased significantly in the past decade. What are your thoughts on this practice? Does Spectra Premium source any products from low-cost countries? If so, what strategies has the company put in place to assure quality control?
Low-cost country sourcing is a major part of our product strategy, and maintaining consistency of product through quality control, even when low-cost country sourcing is utilized, is something that we believe we have developed a rather effective strategy. One major advantage for us is that a good portion of our business is as a supplier to original equipment auto manufacturers. In order to meet OE specifications for our aftermarket products, we internally cross-integrate our resources to ensure engineering and quality control standards are met at all levels of product development, incoming inspection and finished goods production. These investments in quality control are equally prominent at both Spectra Premium North American facilities and low-cost country sourcing partner manufacturers.
Bottom line, we invest resources, training, continuous improvement programs and on-site personnel in our manufacturing partners to ensure that quality standards and product specifications meet or exceed the OE design. Ultimately, we realize the strategy of using low-cost country sourcing has to also consider the competitive nature of the product we sell while not compromising on quality. At Spectra, we’ve teamed our Canadian manufacturing with offshore manufacturing partners to help us maintain an effective competitive strategy, but at the same time, we ensure that via our engineering expertise and extensive reliance on data, stringent standards are met on all aftermarket products we sell.
Another “hot button” issue for suppliers is inventory management. Is this important to Spectra Premium? What resources does Spectra use to help keep customers on top of their game in this regard?
Space in every channel of aftermarket distribution is at a premium and manufacturers from across all product categories are positioning for space of their products within the store environment. Equally important is the need for deeper product assortments at the store level. Spectra Premium seeks to look at both of these challenges and provide solutions that:
1) Invest in product depth
2) Assure parts information accuracy
3) Maximize space utilization
From the inventory management side we have recently partnered with Experian to create a Spectra Premium Automated Stocking Guide Tool, which will allow our Category Management team to provide instant assortment suggestions based on VIO, failure rates and historical product movement.
Accuracy of parts information management plays a vital role in assortment management assuring that store look-ups are turned into real sales opportunities. At Spectra, we utilize digital assets, industry compliant data, product attributes and multi view images to ensure that our channel partner’s investment is turned into sales opportunities that provide accurate data throughout the transaction process to guarantee a sale that remains sold.
The Premium Choice Radiator Box was designed to maximize space utilization while ensuring product integrity. The “re sealable” carton saves 26 percent in space consumption and includes product labels with designation codes so assortment mix can be designed around box height in all store and DC stock models. A new Fuel Pump Assembly box scheduled to launch in February of 2012 will also follow this focus and offer an 18 percent space-savings solution.
Spectra Premium recently announced some other changes to the company’s packaging – the addition of QR codes on radiator boxes. Tell us about these new developments and what benefits they offer.
Facilitating a message to the professional installer or DIY consumer aimed at easing the installation process of our products is the primary focus of adding QR codes to all product categories we offer. Today, with relation the radiator line, a quick scan of the QR code will bring the user to a PDF “on the go” file of our trilingual installation instructions, highlighting all required jobs to complete a radiator installation along with identifying common failures that can be seen on their products if proper maintenance is not performed. In the very near future, all product technical service bulletins related to specific part applications will be linked to these QR codes along with downloadable installation videos. We feel a QR code can provide a sort of reassurance to the end user that the manufacturer is right there “on their shoulder” before, during and after the installation process, providing any help that may be required.
Spectra also recently partnered with a company called Retail Insight to utilize its “Web Fetch” price-shopping tool. Can you tell us more about this?
The automotive aftermarket is one that moves on a daily basis and price modeling is extremely important to keep up with volatile price categories. The “Web Fetch” tool allows us to monitor price trends across North America in zip code clusters via an automated process. This data from national wholesalers or retailers and now the more present e-tailers allows us to work with our channel partners on price shifts, late model price positioning, dual brand strategies and regional price opportunities that may exist. Sharing and analyzing this information with our customers is a key part of our focus committed to the investment of assortment within their business model.
Outside of the new packaging you introduced earlier this summer, what’s new at Spectra? Should we keep an eye out for any new products in 2012?
The focus at Spectra Premium for 2012 will revolve around the elaboration of development on existing product lines, new and enhanced technologies, improved customer services and cutting-edge aftermarket solutions. Continued development of the Fuel Delivery product line will remain the product focus as we expand our assortment availability into existing and new categories that compliment our full fuel system solution. On the technology side, our focus will be on the enhancement of parts information management services such as TSB links and integration of parts designation codes into third party catalog systems. Services and aftermarket solutions such as rolling out support of G Commerce VIC, live online technical support and ongoing product solutions such as our CU2311 enhancement will remain a commitment to our aftermarket partners.
