Automotive Aftermarket Development Strategy

With the continuous development and the growing maturity of the Chinese Automobile industry, the automotive aftermarket is also beginning to take shape, relying on the services such as car accessories, parts sales, auto clubs, finance, lease, etc. As the downstream industry of the automobile industry chain, it has become an indispensible component of the whole car industry, turning into the new economic growth point and influencing the whole market upwards. This unceasing development will inevitably cause profit redistribution, therefore, the study of the trends and operation mode has far-reaching impact on and relevance to the enterprises involved in the automotive aftermarket. Yet the present Chinese automotive aftermarket is till immature. Compared with the mature foreign market, the Chinese companies are slightly left behind in competitiveness, development pace and creativity, which demands that the companies make adjustments in many aspects, especially in the backdrop of the global financial crisis, the worsening economic environment, with all industries facing unprecedented troubles. Due to the lack of experience to deal with the financial crisis, it is even more urgent for the Chinese companies related to the automotive aftermarket to improve their anti-risk capability so that they can cope no matter in favorable or negative situations.Chapter one introduces the situations and difficulties faced by the automotive aftermarket under the influence of the financial crisis gives the definition of automotive aftermarket and provides an overview of its current status in China. In the past five years, our sales increased from 2,000,000 to 9,000,000. Although we failed to realize the goal of producing and selling more than 10,000,000 cars in 2008, we have achieved this in 2009. But this overgrowth causes conflicts between the auto consumption and the lag of the supporting infrastructure and corresponding policies. The high domestic labor costs and the relatively saturated market in the developed countries will drive their auto industries to the developing countries with potential market and low production costs. The competition with the experienced, financially and technically advanced foreign companies makes it difficult for our automotive aftermarket to develop, which urges the growth and perfection on our side. Our automotive aftermarket is considerably lagged behind by the mature foreign aftermarket in two aspects: first, the visible entity; second, the invisible services including pre-sale service, sale service and after-sale service. But the vast domestic market provides a favorable development condition for our automotive aftermarket, which offers a good chance for our market to participate in the fierce international competition, and to establish a new market order.Chapter Two describes the application and development of the management theory in the automotive aftermarket and provides theoretical basis for the development of the related companies. Firstly, the relationship between the company and its supplier, various competitors and customers is always confrontation and competition. In order to gain initiative in competition, the core enterprises strengthen the control of raw material supply, service, distribution and sales. With the advancement of the global market and information technology, the trend between companies is getting increasingly evident, so that it is necessary to carry out overall planning, reorganize, coordinate, supervise and optimize to improve overall efficiency. The supply chain management has become a central issue of research and practice since the 1990s. It can quickly reflect market demands, overall strategic management, etc highly flexible targets, is more suitable to the complex and changing competition environment than the vertical integration and therefore is gradually turning from a management technique into an operation mode. The ownership forms of the entity enterprises in the supply chain management system are independent of each other, but still essentially jointed, forming a whole to compete with other supply chains. Secondly, based on the strategic union, enterprises do not need to expand their sizes aimlessly, duplicate construction and waste resources. Instead, they can channel the limited resources into the important projects that need improving, by resource relocation. Finally, the chain operation mode is the future development direction of service enterprises of the automotive aftermarket.Chapter Three discusses the problems in the automotive aftermarket service enterprises, taking the Automobile Repair Company of Beijing. If the Chinese automotive aftermarket enterprises want to keep pace with the times, they have not only to improve the concept of their own operation management, but also to learn the advanced foreign management, technique and experience over the years, and combine them with the actual situations of the Chinese market, to set up the automotive aftermarket enterprises with Chinese characteristics. Only in this way, can the domestic companies give full play to their competition advantages in the Chinese market, innovate new services and modes, to provide the customers with really satisfactory service, and finally succeed in assuming responsibilities of the development of the Chinese automotive aftermarket The unionization and standardization of the organizational form is the prerequisite of chain operation; integration and specialization of the operation mode is the core; and standardization and modernization of management is the basic guarantee to obtain profits.Chapter Four puts forward the development strategy of the automotive aftermarket in connection with the problems in the market. To improve the automotive aftermarket service quality and efficiency, the most urgent priority is to establish the operation concept of brand and to set up influential service brands suitable to China's national conditions through service brand operation strategy. To establish brand image, on the one hand, we have to work actively among the enterprises, to generate a group of companies with high service quality and good image; on the other we have to guide the consumers to build brand awareness. In order to form good reputation, our companies have to constantly lower costs, achieve high quality with low price, and take offering comprehensive quick service as the priority, to form fixed loyal customer group, so as to realize large-scale operation. We believe that a good service network should have a uniform price, reduce purchase channels, introduce advanced equipments, set up follow-up service, and try to make customers get affordable and quick service, so that the operation network can be continuously enlarged with the spread reputation. With the growth of the franchises, the enterprise's brand will be more and more competitive. The size, price, quality and brand strategy, etc will become the important indicators to judge whether a company is competitive. The establishment of the integrated service system will greatly improve our automotive aftermarket's strengths in the above aspects, and then enhance the overall competitiveness against the foreign companies in this field.