Last week, Mark Phillips, editor of AMN’s sister publication Counterman magazine, sat down with ACDelco’s Paul Copses to talk about the inter-relationship between ACDelco and its parent company General Motors. Captured in our Executive Interview series, Copses told Phillips that customer service is more important in the GM/ACDelco culture than ever before. “We say in our business that it starts with buying a car, but that’s a small part of the ownership experience. It’s the time between the sale when we have to excel as a company,” Copses said in the interview.
Yesterday, O’Reilly Automotive released its fourth quarter and full year 2010 results. The company reported that sales for the fourth quarter increased $137 million, or 12 percent, to $1.31 billion from $1.17 billion for the same period a year ago. Sales for the year ended Dec. 31, 2010, increased $550 million, or 11 percent, compared to $5.4 billion from $4.85 billion for the year ended Dec. 31, 2009. CEO and Co-President Greg Henslee noted that the company now has converted all CSK stores over to the O’Reilly system. The CSK stores are where most opportunity lies for O’Reilly, according to a note from BB&T’s Tony Cristello following O’Reilly’s conference call reviewing the results. “Without calling out specific numbers, management indicated that they were likely in the second to third stage of increasing revenue per store from $1.35M to $1.8M (we estimate currently around $1.5M),” Cristello highlighted.
In other news from the distribution segment this week, the Automotive Distribution Network announced what it expects to be its most “spectacular” group gathering to date. For its 2012 national convention, representatives from all brands under the Network umbrella — Parts Plus, IAPA, AutoStar, Auto Pride, CMB and Network Products — will meet at the Wynn Las Vegas to forge new business relationships; see the latest technology, products and services on display at the ever-expanding, 50,000-square-foot Manufacturers Expo; and receive real-world training featuring renowned business-seminar speakers. The convention will take place Feb. 26-29, 2012, at Wynn Las Vegas.
Federal-Mogul’s North American aftermarket sales organization was recently recognized by O’Reilly for its technical and training support. The group was presented with the prestigious O’Reilly Automotive Training/Technical Award during the annual O’Reilly Managers Conference held Feb. 6-8 in Nashville, Tenn. Federal-Mogul’s field sales force provides almost daily technical training and other assistance for O’Reilly outside and in-store sales personnel. In addition to these ongoing activities, Federal-Mogul representatives conduct a series of training “blitzes” for O’Reilly store employees in major U.S. markets.
Rounding out our recap of the week’s most popular news on AMN, we take a quick five minutes to get to know Gary Bostic from Remy Power Products a little better. As part of our new, exclusive “Five Minutes With” series, Bostic tells us what he’d probably be doing right now if he wasn’t entrenched in the aftermarket. My feeling is many of you will be jealous.
