The Week in Review offers a snapshot of the most read stories of the week as seen on aftermarketNews. To access the complete stories, simply click on the highlighted links. If you missed reading one of our daily news emails, click on any of the dates listed at the bottom of the page to begin catching up on the latest industry news.
While there were a number of highly read news items published on aftermarketNews this week, it was a couple of exclusive commentaries that lead the pack of most read stories this week. First, came the inaugural column from new Counterman contributor and shop owner Mike Demers, who wrote “What’s Wrong with Customer Service?”, which takes a look at the generational differences in customer service expectations today.
Another Counterman exclusive, this one from Editor Brian Cruickshank, was also among our highest read stories this week. In his article “Raising the Bar: Turning Good Shops Into Great Ones,” Cruickshank provides a fly-on-the-wall perspective from the Independent Warehouse Distributors annual convention held last month in Palm Desert, CA. A main theme of this year’s IWD convention was focused on ways to help what the national program group refers to as “Tier Two” and “Tier Three” shops become “Tier One” shops.
AMN readers were also interested this week to learn about the latest in CSK’s financial reporting. CSK Auto filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission its annual Form 10-K report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year 2005. The parts retailer had announced in April that the report would be delayed. Preliminary net sales in fiscal 2006 increased approximately 15.2 percent to approximately $1.9 billion from approximately $1.6 billion in fiscal 2005.
Also highly read this week was the latest in the continuing legal battles between Navistar and Ford. The legal battles between the two companies began in late February, after Navistar suspended production of the Power Stroke diesel engine that it builds for Ford Motor Co. because it claimed Ford stopped honoring the terms of agreement under which the engines were built. In early March, Navistar entered into a consent injunction with Ford Motor Co. to continue shipping 6.4L Power Stroke diesel engines to Ford, for which Ford would pay, without deductions, for each engine. Ford sued, Navistar counter-sued and now the two companies are going to trial after failing to work out a settlement to the dispute privately, per court order.
Federated Auto Parts made headlines twice this week, both times announcing the names of its top vendors, which were recognized at the program group’s annual meeting held in San Diego last month. On Monday we announced that Federated presented its Outstanding Vendor of the Year Award for 2006 to Affinia Undercar (Raybestos/Spicer). Today, the company released the names of its Outstanding Suppliers in six categories.
To view all of the news from the past week, simply click on the link for each corresponding day:
