Chairman's Message
Working The Plan
By Willi Alexander
There’s no doubt we live in interesting times: changes in government, a new world order in banking and finance, dramatic restructuring of the car business... Our days are filled with challenges and opportunities, and sometimes it’s hard to tell which is which!
Thankfully, our industry has weathered these challenging times relatively well. AWDA members have been stable and many have even been growing as a result of marketplace fundamentals that are currently in our favor...
Fewer new car sales mean a greater emphasis on preventive maintenance.
Struggling dealerships mean weaker competitors.
“Fired” dealers are providing us with a new supply of qualified technicians and new aftermarket outlets.
And the constant threat of higher fuel prices means greater interest in fuel economy that comes from a well-maintained vehicle.
Still, despite these positive conditions, we’d be foolish not to realize that as quickly as these winds of change shifted in our favor - they could just as quickly turn into a strong headwind blocking our positive momentum.
Preparing for an unknown future isn’t easy. We must draw up the best plan of attack based on our beliefs about the future, then lower our shoulders and Work The Plan.
I applaud Jim Tennant, AWDA’s 2008 Chairman, for having the courage to press your board of governors to create a strategic plan for AWDA. I learned much from our 2009 AWDA Chairman, Rusty Bishop, about passionately focusing on changes to bring alignment to AWDA’s practices and the new strategic plan.
The result is a strategic plan that contains three major elements: Advocacy, Networking and Leadership. What follows is a short report on the progress of the three elements.
In times of uncertainty, Leadership is incredibly important. That includes Leadership within AWDA - Leadership within the AAIA - and Leadership within the aftermarket.
A key ingredient in providing this leadership is increased involvement of AWDA members through volunteer work on AAIA committees.
For those of you who might not be aware, committees are where the action is as far as directing and focusing the association’s resources. If AWDA is to provide leadership for the association and the industry, we need an impactful presence on these committees. I myself entered AWDA’s Leadership through the Financial Statistics and Market Research Committee back in the mid- nineties. Committee service is a terrific stepping stone to greater involvement and influence.
I’m pleased to report that well over 100 AWDA members are currently participating on AAIA committees. Perhaps most importantly, AWDA members constitute fully half of AAIA’s Board of Directors, including 9 current and former AWDA Governors!
This presence means that the needs and concerns of AWDA distributors, their suppliers and their customers will be prominent when AAIA looks to the future of the aftermarket.
I give us good marks for working our plan in the area of Leadership, but more needs to be done. So bring on the best and brightest people that your company can offer the industry. Get involved in committees, attend distributor specific functions and make a difference for your company and the industry.
Networking, is our plan’s second element.
2009 produced the largest attendance of WDs at an AWDA conference since 2004. In the face of a very challenging year, we not only beat all attendance predictions, we crushed them!
This performance provided vivid proof of the value of networking and face-to-face contact. It may be a cliché to say we are a “people business”, but truly, we are. Networking and communication are critical to business in our stores and warehouses, as well as within AWDA.
This year we also introduced the AWDA Pavilion on the main AAPEX Show floor, creating yet another opportunity for networking. The AWDA pavilion showcased distribution specific exhibitors and gave us our own networking area. The AWDA Pavilion is for members who want to meet, connect, or just rest their feet. It will be bigger and better in 2010!
AWDA is all about Networking – and it’s in the strategic plan.
Advocacy is the final element of the strategic plan and the area that will receive the most focus in 2010. The advocacy area of the strategic plan is about AWDA getting input from members to identify common ground so that unified positions can be developed and communicated.
We are in our early stages of activating this element of our strategic plan. One example of this relates to vendor price sheets. Some like them, some don’t, but industry standard price sheets are going away fast. This has introduced new complexities in distributors’ businesses to hit the street with timely, well thought out pricing. The common ground is that we all need information that is more timely and more complete than ever before.
AWDA is working with the program groups, the Manufacturers Advisory Council, and AAIA’s Technology Dept. to develop a standard, PIES-based file to streamline pricing and new product communications. We all have to work too hard to get the timely pricing and product information necessary to run our businesses.
Your AWDA board will look for other areas of common ground for all our members on which to take unified positions so that we can build greater efficiency and strength into our businesses. We know there are challenges in the areas of cataloging, data exchange, emerging competitive channels and legislative issues. Advocacy in such matters will be a critical element in the continued strength and value that AWDA brings to its members.
Finally, I’d like to arm you with a few facts that illustrate the influence and importance of AWDA within the motor vehicle aftermarket.
- The total value of wholesale parts sales to DIFM throughout the aftermarket is $55B
- The total reported value of AWDA Distributor member parts sales is $18B
- That means, of all the parts sold at wholesale in the aftermarket, a third of them are sold by AWDA members. And that’s a conservative estimate!
I hope you have a new appreciation of what your association is doing for you and where you, the members of AWDA, fit into the big picture. You are part of an association that matters to our industry, and I would even say leads our industry!
At Uni-Select we have a saying, “none of us is smarter than all of us”. AWDA is not all about the Board of Governors working the strategic plan. It’s about harnessing the strength and knowledge of all AWDA’s members and engaging them to work the plan to create positive outcomes for our businesses.
Working with you to make the three elements of our strategic plan meaningful for your business will be a goal of mine during 2010. We need your engagement – your efforts to Work the Plan in 2010. I know it will be a very good year for AWDA!
Willi Alexander, Chairman
2009-10 AWDA Board of Governors