We kick off the AMN Week in Review for Nov. 8-12 with a look at a new, enhanced structure for Federal-Mogul’s North American aftermarket organization. As part of the enhancements, the company has appointed Bob Egan to the position of vice president, customer relations for the global aftermarket. Egan has been with Federal-Mogul for 31 years and is also currently serving as chairman of the board of the Automotive Aftermarket Industry Association. In addition, Paul Johnson joins Federal-Mogul as vice president, North America, global aftermarket. He assumes the position formerly held by Egan. He comes to Federal-Mogul from General Motors, where he most recently held the position of general director, ACDelco. Both Egan and Johnson report to Jay Burkhart, senior vice president, global aftermarket.
In other news from the supplier sector, Affinia Group Inc. recently unveiled its new marketing and business strategy. The company’s new "World Smart" business philosophy emphasizes a unique transformational approach to global manufacturing, and assures consistent product quality regardless of where a product is manufactured globally, according to the company.
"Anyone can go off-shore and source low-cost aftermarket products," said Affinia President and CEO Terry McCormack, who unveiled the strategy during the recent AAPEX trade show in Las Vegas. "As a World Smart company, Affinia not only manufactures competitively priced products off-shore, we do so in a manner that assures the highest possible quality. This is the ‘smart’ portion of "World Smart."
According to McCormack, Affinia’s World Smart business strategy is based on four key strategic elements – customer-centric focus, involved Affinia people, continual improvement and supplier relationships.
Changes are afoot in the service sector, with General Motors announcing it will phase out the well-known Goodwrench moniker in favor of branded service offerings for each of its nameplates. As part of an initiative to better connect General Motors’ brands with customers, the automaker has announced that Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac will each receive its own Certified Service brand. Chevrolet Certified Service, Buick Certified Service, GMC Certified Service and Cadillac Certified Service are being launched as part of a larger strategy by the company to strengthen the relationship between the customer and the four brands. GM will phase out the Goodwrench brand name in the U.S. effective Feb. 1, 2011.
In news from the distribution segment, AMN readers were interested this week in the latest financial figures from Quebec-based Uni-Select. Uni-Select has reported sales of $349 million for the third quarter of 2010, compared to $359 million in 2009. Despite the decrease in total sales, the company said it benefited from organic growth of 1.7 percent in the quarter. The conversion of the results of U.S. operations into Canadian dollars had, due to the appreciation of the Canadian dollar, the effect of reducing sales by $12.1 million, while the sale and closure of non-strategic corporate stores during the course of previous quarters decreased sales by $5 million. Year-to-date, sales totaled $1,014 million, compared to $1,094 million in 2009.
Rounding out our recap of the top news this week is our photo gallery from AAPEX 2010, which took place Nov. 2-4 in Las Vegas. Click here to view our photographic slide show and click here to catch up on the many exciting announcements that were made at the event.
