The number of "Family Space" Ford experience stores reached 180 by the end of the year.
Text/Nguyen Kam Cheng
During this year's Guangzhou Auto Show, Jiangling Ford released its new mid-size SUV, the Equator Sport, and officially named it "Lingrui". This exterior looks like the new car of the lingyu medium and large SUV on sale, and is positioned between the lingyu and the compact SUV collar.
The addition of Equator Sport Lingrui also allows Jiangling Ford to have an SUV family composed of Collar, Lingrui, Lingyu and hardcore SUV shakers, and the product layout has been completed.
There is a famous phrase in Ford's corporate culture, "Compete like a challenger", and Xiang Dongping, vice president of Jiangling Motors and general manager of Jiangling Ford Passenger Car Marketing Company, understands this sentence as a "challenger".
Xiang Dongping, general manager of Jiangling Ford Passenger Car Marketing Company
Speaking of Xiang Dongping, he joined SAIC Volkswagen as early as 1998 and was the executive director and sales director of the brand marketing division of SAIC Volkswagen Volkswagen. Between 2010 and 2015, Xiang Dongping created the sales of many models such as Tiguan, Langyi, and Passat that we are now familiar with.
In August this year, he joined Jiangling Ford's Xiang Dongping from Hyundai Motor and is fully responsible for branding, marketing, sales and service. So with more than 20 years of experience in automobile marketing, what new thinking will he bring to Jiangling Ford in an era of change in the Ford brand?
Recently, we had a conversation with Xiang Zong, starting from the new car of Jiangling Ford brand and Equator Sport Lingrui...
Jiangling Ford is equipped with 12 ultrasonic radar + 4 high-definition cameras + 3 millimeter wave radar + 2 monocular cameras + 2 Mobileye Q4 chips for Lingrui. This configuration level is already at the same level as the first-line smart car companies.
But the higher the smart configuration, the more the chip is used. So the first question points to the chip: has Jiangling Ford encountered the "lack of core" problem, how long will this matter last, and what kind of response does Jiangling Ford have to deal with this?
Xiang always believes that the challenge of the lack of cores in the automotive industry will continue, because the cycle of the chip industry is very long, and it needs to expand production not in months, but in years. A lot of chips on another car, often missing a chip production is blocked, and what is missing is difficult to predict, and what is missing each month may be a different chip.
Although it is predicted that the problem of missing cores will continue, Shang Dongping believes that this incident will interfere with Jiangling Ford relatively little. Because their team tries to get the chip in every way, including working with individual universities.
In terms of production, Jiangling Ford will first produce the car, and when the chip comes, it can be installed. If you wait for the chip to come and then produce it, then the car will be slower.
I believe that everyone's impression is that Jiangling Ford is still mainly doing commercial vehicles, such as Ford Transit and other products. Now the newly established joint venture is going to make a big fuss about passenger cars. So what is the difference between sales and service and commercial vehicles?
Shang Dongping said that in the past, commercial vehicles were more of a tool, such as good quality can not stop the car. The passenger car is a consumer product, the playing style is different, of course, the quality is still to be guaranteed.
Everyone knows that Ford is a century-old store, but Ford has a very strong innovation gene, such as the assembly line created by the Model T, and its influence is not only in the automotive field. Judging from the speed of Lingrui's birth, Jiangling Ford is constantly challenging time and breaking records.
In terms of sales channels, after a year, Jiangling Ford launched the "Family Space Home Space" Ford Experience Store. According to the plan, the number of experience stores will reach 180 by the end of this year, which will be able to cover 155 cities.
Jiangling Ford's products and image are changing towards personalization, specialization, differentiation and youth, and Xiang Zong also said that they are also constantly finding better ways to position enterprises. When it comes to differentiated brands, Jiangling Ford will focus on SUVs and pickup trucks in the future.
For strategic goals, Xiang Dongping used a running example as an analogy: just like running on the Gobi, first of all, you feel the direction correctly, have a clear direction, and a clear goal, so that you will not run the wrong way.
For the future we (Jiangling Ford) have a very clear plan, a very clear blueprint, a very clear design, we know which direction we should go.
Starting from January 1 next year, the state has a big change in the joint venture policy, and the liberalization of the Sino-foreign joint venture equity ratio will also bring great changes. For example, there has been a shift in the industry like Dongfeng Yueda Kia.
Jiangling Ford is a joint venture newly established on September 26, which is committed to providing distribution services for Ford brand passenger cars produced by Jiangling Motors, and can also be operated through wholesale sales by dealers or direct sales by end customers. So how does Jiangling Ford view this "post-joint venture" era?
In this regard, Xiang Dongping replied "cautiously": Jiangling is a joint venture company, so the disclosure of information must comply with the announcement requirements of listed companies. Our announcement also shows that the joint venture share ratio of the new company is 49% for Ford and 51% for Jiangling. Currently, Ford Motor holds a 32% stake in Jiangling Motors.
Both sides of the joint venture have their own advantages, first of all, Ford has a lot of experience in passenger cars, and Jiangling used to only be in commercial vehicles. But Jiangling also has its own advantages, that is, low-cost development efficiency and speed. In the future, there will be a lot of differentiation and customization of automotive products, and Jiangling has accumulated a lot of experience in this area in the past as a commercial vehicle.
Xiang Dongping believes that Ford and Jiangling are "the best combination, so that we will have more confidence." ”
Therefore, the shareholders of both sides jointly set up such a new joint venture company, so that they can integrate such a resource between them to do a good job in such a market as SUVs.