Ford Motors has been a strong name in the global automotive market. In India too, the brand has been quite popular among the interested buyer lot, but it still failed to attract huge demand due to slightly higher cost of ownership. In order to reduce the cost of spares, Ford has announced that it may sell the spares in the open market to enable convenient servicing of cars.
The decision may help local garages and independent stations to repair the cars without much hassle. This would indeed offer owners to find cheaper and convenient service option in comparison to an authorized station. Earlier, genuine spares would only be available at Ford's authorized workshops, which would not be so cost affective. Moreover, Ford did not have authorized service stations at every location which further added-on the problem. Speaking in detail about the drawback, Nigel Harris, Ford India President, said, “We found out from our research that customers need us to be far more accessible than what we are today and that was the primary driver for us to open up parts distribution.”
For a while now, Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been bothering Ford India by alleging that some auto makers in the country are indulging in anti-competitive practices by restricting the sale of spares in the open market and only selling them through authorized dealerships at higher prices. When questioned by sources, if this move was to take the CCI off its radar, Nigel Harris said, “It’s one factor but the primary reason was to give the customers parts where they want. When your customers tell you that if you make your parts more available to me, I’ll buy your vehicles then the answers are pretty simple.”
Earlier authorized dealers worried about loosing business to non-authorized dealers with this move. But now with Ford's assurance have realized that this move would mean business for all and even they stand a good chance of profit with more products in their showroom and service departments. The move is expected to generate a good amount of sales for Ford in India.
Source - AC
