A recent survey suggested that University students rarely considered the motor industry for their future career. Which I was disappointed to read, knowing how much this industry needs to recruit the top talent for its future. And to see that it is failing to appeal to women in the more traditional work areas not just manufacturing, design and motorsports.

And as one of the IMI’s network of Automotive Careers Champions I’m happy to do my bit to spread the word about an exciting job opportunity here, in the hope that more UK students will look more favourably on this industry than they might have done otherwise. And who can afford to ignore remarkable job offers like this one in today’s economic situation.

Which is why I’d like to encourage as many University students to enter a high profile industry competition to ‘win’ 5 months challenging work experience in the automotive industry plus £7500 in prize money. I’m talking about the 2011 Autocar-Courland Next Generation Award  which includes the chance to work for McLaren, Mercedes-Benz, Peugeot, Toyota and Skoda as well as a £7500 cash prize.

How impressive that will look on any CV – and the opportunity to be considered for a full time graduate appointment at the end of this period we’d hope.

“We are encouraging all students to look to the automotive world for their first step into the world of employment. The industry offers numerous and wide ranging opportunities for enthusiastic graduates – it’s innovative, inspiring and challenging. The industry is most definitely not just for the petrol head” explained Martin Bohling of Courland Automotive Practice.

UK University students are invited to respond to the following brief:

“Using your area of expertise, write a 500-word proposal suggesting some improvement (be it an invention, a legislative change, a change to corporate policy or the adoption of a new convention) which you believe would be a worthwhile benefit to the automotive business, on a small or large scale.”

Brief entries must be in by 28 August and are expected to be innovative, incisive and well communicated using diagrams and images to aid clarity. Twelve students will then be invited to an assessment day before the shortlist is produced. This stage allows each candidate to present their ideas to a panel of judges giving them added interview experience and feedback. The winner will be announced in November.

This is the third year of these Awards and it would be good to see a female winner for the first time. I can’t see why not, providing enough female students have heard of this Award in enough time to whet their appetite.

To find out about exciting career opportunities in the motor industry, please visit the Autocity website for background information

This is such a great opportunity for high flying students to make a real difference to our industry’s future, working alongside some of the leading players here.

FOXY Steph

No matter your lifestyle, there’s a genuinely female friendly garage choice for women drivers in Leicester.

We first met Sturgess Motor Group when they organised a Women in the Driving Seat evening event for local female motorists. It was a popular feature in their calendar and their Marketing Manager, Nichola Moore, saw this as a way to show women drivers how much the Group cares about their motoring welfare not just the value of their business.

It was only a matter of time before this Motor Group would subscribe to FOXY Choice’s female friendly approved UK garage network as further evidence that they really do care for their female customers long after the car has been sold.

Sturgess operates seven franchised car dealership operations in Leicester covering Toyota, Nissan, Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Volvo and Land Rover brands. The dealership name and logo will be familiar in the city with branches in Narborough Road, Aylestone Road, Almond Road and Walnut Street.

All locations are ATA employers (Automotive Technician Accredited) which means their staff are accredited to repair all makes of cars not just their franchised brands. They also subscribe to the Motor Codes Service and Repair code which is working its way towards full OFT Code of Practice approval. These are both signs of superior standards in an industry with too many garage/dealership complaints and where women often feel ill at ease and on their guard.

This female unease is precisely why Sturgess have signed up to the FOXY Promise to ‘never overcharge, patronise or sell women services they don’t need or want’ AND have appoined Debbie McIntyre, Gill Clifford, Trish Blaber, Sheena Tegg, Rebecca Hill and Jessica Watts to be Female Business Ambassadors as part of the FOXY Choice female friendly approved garage network.

Sturgess of Leicester is one of the UK’s oldest family operated motor dealers and was founded in 1897. Women shopping for a new or nearly new car to suit their lifestyle and budget will find they have a genuinely female friendly choice here, whether it’s a 4×4, a prestigious executive car, a sporty convertible, something for the family or a stylish and environmentally friendly supermini.

We look forward to working with Sturgess in future.

FOXY Steph

I am sorry to hear of Toyota’s problems at present – we know they are an organisation committed to quality and that they are not the only car manufacturers with cars to recall and serious safety issues to address.

I was taken aback to read that the adult family who died in the Lexus with the accelerator stuck on had the time to call the US equivalent of 999 but did not necessarily know to brake, declutch or switch the engine off… until it was too late.  Perhaps the driver was too scared or perhaps these remedial actions didn’t work?

I heard Toyota UK’s MD on R4′s Today programme this morning and he coped well with some awful questions like ‘Can you give us a cast iron guarantee that Toyota cars are 100% reliable…’ How can anyone be expected to answer such a question in these circumstances?

Let’s hope the recall process is speedy for all concerned and that this message reaches any secondhand Toyota car owners who might be affected but not on the manufacturer or dealership mailing lists.

Of course Toyota will do all it can to sort this out as soon as possible and of course other drivers will be fearful until their car is checked.

And whilst Toyota is taking the public flak, Honda is recalling cars and so is PSA but without the media spotlight on them.

But perhaps there are some lessons to be learned from being the recently largest global car manufacturer in a beleaguered industry and needing to keep an eye on the share price.  During the latter part of 2008 I read in a trade publication that Toyota was planning to introduce ten new models into the UK market in 2009 – not good timing with the benefit of hindsight.

I don’t think they all did come to market but it was clear to me then that the strategy was for new product development not the status quo.  And whilst quality and reliability have been Toyota’s strengths for many years I understand that the accelerator problem is caused due to changes made to their ABS system so one has to wonder whether the new systems were well enough tested pre new model release. Or if a degree of complacency might have crept in somewhere…

If you were to ask me which manufacturer would be most likely to have safety and reliability at the top of the agenda then I’d refer to the Reliability Index where Toyota appears in fourth position behind Suzuki, Honda and Mazda and well ahead of the likes of Ford, Vauxhall and BMW.

Too soon to measure the cost (£ billions are estimated) but the customer awareness and reassurance campaign that will undoubtedly follow will be every bit as important as the vehicle checks and remedial work to rebuild the customer trust that was part of the Toyota brand.

What depressing motor industry news. These were yesterday’s headlines.

• new car sales in sharp decline

• car manufacturer Toyota slashes profits forecast

• BMW’s Mini new car production to stop for a month over Christmas

• Jaguar luxury car manufacturer extends redundancy plan

FOXY Lady Drivers Club works with female friendly car dealerships, garages and fast fit chains and our new garage services website, FOXY Choice, is doing good business in the independent garage sector but less well in the franchised dealer sector. Why is this?

Well, to begin with, all car dealerships are seriously depressed about the absence of new car sales. And whilst some might blame this all on the economy, the reality is that recent car sales patterns have been confirming that motorists are getting more eco-friendly and not buying big any more – in fact we might say that ‘small’ is the new ‘big’ in terms of being ‘cool’; this is surely about to affect fleet car sales which is the real production and supply dilemma for car manufacturers to face with fairly immediate effect.

Recognising that much of this downturn has been on the cards for some time for these reasons, we still feel the pain of the likes of the Sidlow Group, recently into liquidation after a 60 year history and with the potential of 250 lost jobs. We also know of exceptional individuals who have been made redundant by plc groups and who are sufficiently disillusioned to be considering leaving the retail motor industry for good. What a waste of their training and experience, were this to happen.

Yet this preoccupation with new car sales is missing the companion gift horse sales opportunity; that of pro-actively targeting new aftersales business and giving the independent sector a run for their money in this area. I say this for the benefit of the motorist because FOXY believes in consumer choice, no matter the motorists’ budget – we do not favour either type of garage solution because women drivers have their own shopping agenda and expectations in this area.

As things stand, I see many dealerships focusing on new car sales, head in the sand, refusing new marketing opportunities regardless, frozen in the headlights almost. Yes manufacturers are doing their promotional best but that’s not the whole story seen from a local perspective. Some leading franchised dealerships tell us they only service and repair their own makes whereas they could so easily be carrying out MOT and car servicing work for other makes AND increasing their potential audience of new car buyers in future.

Another problem is that few new car sales staff know much about aftersales and it isn’t a very sexy sell either…

But do nothing and nothing happens of course, and in a recession where some businesses stand still whilst others spot opportunities and move the baton forward.

There is another way, were the short-sighted able to see it!

I believe that car dealerships should be pro-actively marketing aftersales services (MOTs, car servicing etc) to raise local awareness of their services, to keep in touch with local motorists and earn more from this area (than before) to stay alive…

By building new and targeted relationships now, they can then reap the new car sales benefit from more motorists when the good times return, as they surely will.

Whilst I would say this wouldn’t I, strategic marketers know that recession is no time to do nothing. It’s an opportunity to revisit your strategic business thinking, do new things, invest in new marketing and question the old, get out there and fight for the business there is.

What better opportunity than to join the female friendly FOXY bandwagon? Wake up, think about service levels strategically and leverage the FOXY quality association in the local community.

It’s surely time for all dealerships to focus on aftersales to shore up their bottom line and because they have this time before the next new car sales opportunity in March 2009…

FOXY Steph

FOXY Lady Drivers Club
www.foxyladydrivers.com
Winner, Home Business Awards, 2008
Regional Finalist, HSBC Start-Up Stars Awards, 2007
Runner Up, The Daily Telegraph’s Trailblazers’ Business Awards, 2006
Small Business Award Winner, SAGA Magazine, 2005

The motor industry is struggling to sell new and used cars.

Not the small, green and £35 car tax cars that most women drivers want to buy but the bigger, more thirsty CO2 polluters, like Porsche, Land Rover, Jeep and Chrysler (who saw their sales halve comparing August sales with a year ago).

Clearly the fleet market is fundamental, and for as long as company car drivers continue to see the size of their car as a indicator of their business status, the green effect will be muted in terms of model sales.

As it happens, all this is unfair on the driver who chooses a Porsche, for example, then drives few annual miles in it, compared to a driver in a Vauxhall Corsa, who uses it for heavy business use (each paying their tax in fuel of course). Yet one is seen as green, the other as greedy.

A further blow has been the recent refusal of the EU to entertain predictable delay tactics to the compulsory 130g/km average emissions mandate that all manufacturers must now achieve by 2012.

The problem is that car production can’t be turned on or off, just like that. Apparently it takes 7 years to get a new car up to production and something like a 10 year sales lifespan to make it financially viable. Toyota, for example, has no less than 12 new models to be launched next year, six of which are totally new. Whilst I don’t know which ones, let’s hope they include a cheaper Prius and variations on the Aygo and Yaris rather than top emitters, the RAV and Land Cruiser …

What surprises me is the absence of new and creative thinking in an industry where, in many cases, the same old marketing money is being spent on print, when the market is speeding up and becoming more and more online…

And what about the more lucrative area of aftersales? Couldn’t this be sold better, to new prospects, and even act as a new sales channel into showrooms?

I suspect that the likes of car servicing, MOTs and car repairs are looked after by managers who are more operationally minded whereas those in the showroom are more sales-minded. Were these two to talk to each other about marketing methods, maybe the sales individuals might help aftersales be more creative ways in future, to mutual effect.

Providing they can sign up to the female friendly FOXY Promise, they’d do well to look at the new FOXY Choice website which would give them the added opportunity to show off their investment in quality customer facilities too.

The time is right for new thinking here.

From a consumer point of view, all competition is good and if the manufacturers didn’t seethe green movement coming, they will pay a heavy price. The good news is that in any downturn there are lots of opportunities for those that seek them but few, I suspect, for ostriches playing a waiting game…

FOXY Steph