The conference was organized with patronage of The Ministry for the Economy and Infrastructure and Development, represented by vice-minister, Tadeusz Kościński, and was led by Alfred Franke, the President of SDCM, and having her debut in this role Barbara Masłowska, Managing Director of Texa Poland. As patrons of the meeting we could also see: Polish Information and Foreign Investment Agency and National Centre of Research and Development, which plans were presented by Piotr Pryciński – Deputy Director of Program Management Department. Partners of the undertaking were companies operating on the territory of Poland: Vierol, Castrol, Mahle and Nissens.
EU organization, FIGIEFA, was represented by Sylwia Gotzen, Secretary General. In her speech she was saying about the task and mission of this international association, putting special emphasis on ensuring free competition and equal access to information for all the players of the market.
Automotive Spare Parts Market
The analysis of its current state was made by Robert Kierzek, President of Inter Cars, and Pierre Fleck, Managing Director of Europart Holding GmbH. The first of them presented basic data about passenger cars market, and then discussed the main factors of changes on the market. These included different than before approach of car owners to their vehicles, increasing popularity of Internet and telematics and increase of importance of vehicle fleets.
The total value of the European independent automotive aftermarket is estimated at around EUR 120bn a year, with 82bn in production of spare parts, tyres and accessories. Of 490k European garages, 370k are independent ones. They are being served by 46 thousand companies dealing in selling parts. European customers highly assess independent garages which, in their opinion (results of a conducted survey), are not any worse them authorized carmaker service stations regarding level of offered services, and the prices are much more competitive. This is also noticed by car manufacturers who are fighting for customers using aggressive marketing policy, not hesitating to disavow the independent competition.
Pierre Fleck led his speech towards foreign market of automotive spare parts for trucks, placing emphasis on quite high level of dissatisfaction of customers, connected with practices led by many distributors - selling spare parts of lower quality for better price, whilst in his opinion it should be the speed of service that would be the competitive advantage, not the low quality and low price.
Polish market of automotive spare parts was analysed by Alfred Franke and Tomasz Dulinicz – co-owners of pooling agency Smartscope. On this occasion they paid attention to growth of motor vehicle fleet growth within the last decade, which amounted to almost 50% – up to 15m vehicles, and total value of production of the whole automotive industry was estimated at the level of PLN 110bn a year, of which over a half (PLN 70bn) accounts for spare parts, which production and sales went up three times in that period of time.
Opinion of experts
An integral part of the conference was a Debate on Motorization led by two large lodges of experts. The first one was attended by: Joanna Szkudłapska-Włodarczyk, Chief of Aftermarket Mahle Polska Department, Paweł Hanczewski, Commercial Director of Automotive Spare Parts Department Robert Bosch, Bogumił Papierniok, CEO of Moto-Profil, Janusz Andrzejewski, President of the Board of Auto Land Polska, and Alfred Franke, President of SDCM. The group analysed in details questions of chances and threats signalled before: telematics and errors in official vehicle registers and market databases. One of discussed, important matters currently was also the problem of too big number of controls realized by different authorities, (such as UDZ, PIP, ZUS, IH, US, GIOŚ, CNBS and other.) and their negative influence on activity of entities active on the automotive market. That is why it has been demanded that a special electronic database of certificates is created, to which the inspectors shall have access, what would make the controls much easier and would not draw controlled companies away from their core activities.
The second lodge composed of: Łukasz Twardowski (Ministry of Infrastructure and Development, Road Transportation Department), Rafał Sosnowski (Automotive Technology Association), Jerzy Maliński (Automotive Employers' Organisation MOVEO) and Jerzy Turek (Polish Chamber of MOT Check Stations) dealt with the matter of reliability and compulsory of technical inspections for the improvement of road safety and ecology. Here there were also ideas which might cure current, unfavourable situation. Also the Ministry has a large number of projects prepared by the representatives of the resort and experts. Łukasz Twardowski announced implementing supervision over MOT check stations by a central authority, not by regional ones. Whilst other participants of the discussion drew attention to the fact that diagnostic mechanics do not render services, but perform control tasks ordered by the government, so their activity cannot be treated only at arm’s length category.
In the opinion of the Parties
During the speech of Alfred Franke and Tomasz Dulinicz, an interactive survey has been performed among the participants. It showed that 62.3% of manufacturers and 58.3% of distributors forecast an increase by several percent in 2016 in their revenues in comparison to the same period a year ago, and 30.2% manufacturers and 37% distributors hope to improve by more than 10%. Because of those 74.1% distributors of spare parts and 58.5% of manufacturers declared new investments in 2016 into production, warehousing and office facilities. Just over 50% of respondents recorded an increase in employment in 2015 (decrease just in 4% of cases). On average, a half of distributors and manufacturers recorded a decrease in generated margin, whilst only about 5% recorded an increase in margin. Also almost a half of respondents saw the biggest threat for the development of their activities in decrease of margin. A separate question was on fears about unfavourable influence of legislative regulation on the independent automotive aftermarket, and here the most popular was creating closed telematic systems and infringement of the rules of GVO by carmakers. The survey also showed that spare parts manufacturers invest 8–10% of their income in research and development.
Tenth anniversary of SDCM
The president of the organization – Alfred Franke, reminded activities of the organization up to now. They applied to such important matters as accepting by Poland the so called Repair Clause, efforts to cut the grey zone in motorization and following GVO directive, especially regarding access for independent garages to technical data of vehicles. The most recent achievements is the report on errors in CEP vehicle register, which make the whole situation on the market and its correct analysis very difficult, discouraging investors to take up more important actions in their area. Peculiar example of such disorientation is presence of vehicles which are more than... thousand years, in the register's database. In total, in the same system, there are around 7 million of "dead souls", i.e. Cars which were withdrawn from running, but which were not deleted from the register, which is said to be updated.
SDCM has also prepared a document on threats for the free market, which result from development of telematics and analysis of operations of MOT check stations in Poland. Besides that, the Association got involved in creating and implementing INNOMOTO project, initiative of the National Centre of Research and Development, supporting financing innovative automotive projects. Within the past 6 years there were in total 2,892 publications on actions of SDCM.
Today SDCM, as a member of International Federation of Independent Automotive Distributors (FIGIEFA) – said Sylvia Gotzen, secretary-general of this organization – takes part in a battle for open telematic systems, which takes place in Brussels. There quarters of law regulations are also being prepared there, later influencing European automotive industry. Achievements of SDCM are a great proof that communication above segmentation is so important. The association is created by companies which compete on the market on a daily basis. In SDCM the rivals are trying to be partners, who cooperate for the benefit of all market participants.
Laureates of SDCM and Partslife contest
"Garage of the Year" is the biggest initiative of this kind in Poland, based on best practice from abroad. It is organized by SDCM and Partslife, and this year the rewards were delivered during a ceremony at the conference.
In "Small Garage" category (up to 3 repair pits) first three places went to:
- K. Team from Świdnica
- Dom Handlowy Teresa Leń-Koźminek
- Ponicki Diagnostic
In "Medium Garage" category (4–6 repair pits) first three places went to:
- Auto Serwis Szymecki
- Bosch Service Maciejewski
- Centrum Obsługi Pojazdów Tomasz Polanowski
In "Large Garage" category (more than 6 repair pits) first three places went to:
- Auto Miras
- Serwis Samochodowy Klaczek
- Fabel sp. z o.o.
Source: e-autonaprawa. pl
2016-01-08