Aftermarket trends on the future: a view from E&Y

New Delhi, February 8, 2013: Opening Session II of the ACMA Automechanika seminar today, Rakesh Batra, partner and national leader (Auto Sector) at Ernst & Young, spoke about the importance of the value chain in the auto components field. In his crisp and succinct address on ‘Improving the Auto Components Value Chain – Why it is important to focus on Aftermarket Improvement’, he highlighted the fact that telematics will be a huge factor for the future and that companies will have to develop a business model.

He said that the key areas of the future will be safety and security, vehicle diagnostics, regulations which include the ‘Right to repair’ that is mandated in the developed markets and V2V (vehicle-to-vehicle) communication which will have implications for factory-fitted parts. Batra said all this is now more relevant for the west.

He also spoke about how social media will lower the costs of education and marketing in the automotive repair chain. This will require a well-defined approach as well as the need to understand the complexity of the business. He cited the example of Federal-Mogul of the US which has pretty much perfected a selling policy for its Champion brand based on this kind of platform.

Following his address, Atish Mukhopadhyaya, Principal (Delivery Excellence and Automotive & Engineered Products) of the Tata Strategic Management Centre, spoke on strengthening the traditional route to aftermarket and how a stronger supply relationship with OEM’s spare parts divisions can cap lost sales.

The first session of the day closed with ‘A customer’s perspective’ from Pritam A Doshi of PAE Ltd, a 60-year old company in the business of the auto aftermarket.