AutoRetail Russia

On 11-13 October, Adam Smith Conferences hosted the inaugural Autoretail Russia Forum, a timely and productive gathering of high-profile figures from the Russian automotive retail market and their peers from abroad.

Prominent publications including Vedomosti, RBK and Itar-Tass have since written articles about the ground-breaking presentations and announcements made at the Forum. We invite you to read our own summary of the event (below).

The Ministry of Industry and Trade, represented at the Forum by the director of its automobile department Aleksey Rakhmanov and his deputy Aleksey Zhidyaev - who took part in the question and answer sessions - presented future plans for developing the automotive industry. Among them, they announced that the Ministry does not intend to extend its programme for concessional automotive lending. Mr. Zhidyaev confirmed that “[The Ministry’s] budget for 2012 has not made any funds available for the concessional automotive lending programme”. The issue of eco-taxation was also discussed. Mr. Rakhmanov noted that “The Ministry of Industry and Trade does not intend to limit the rights of the elderly to use [inefficient] old cars. We need to establish what is more important – social benefits today or the health of the nation tomorrow”.

Mikhail Fedorenko, deputy head of the department for social control and trade at the Federal Antimonopoly Service, discussed the issue of complaints regarding service maintenance, which he said had “reached critical importance”. In this connection the Antimonopoly Service announced that it may begin to monitor and control these services at official and unofficial dealers.

In addition to presentations by regulatory and legislative bodies, the Forum’s audience also heard from managers from dealer companies and manufacturers, who presented their views on the Russian autoretail industry and plans for its development.

A few years ago dealers focussed their strategies on improving service maintenance; now the time has come to look at their results. The presentation by Tatiana Lukovetskaya of Rolf Retail highlighted the measures that Rolf has taken to encourage loyalty among its clients. Ms. Lukovetskaya touched upon reward programmes, and a new approach to communicating with clients. Sergey Savitsky of Atlant-M also spoke about a client-oriented approach, while demonstrating the results that his company has already achieved in collecting feedback to improve service: “In 350 days, 21 directors held productive meetings with 50 top clients. This equals approximately one meeting per week.” This is one example of Atlant-M’s feedback operations. Incidentally, both Rolf and Atlant-M celebrated their twentieth anniversaries this year.

Other professionals who shared their views include the directors of successful dealer companies Nezavisimost, Genser, Modus, Musa Motors, Transtechservice, Favorit Motors, Avtograd Group, Autospeccentre and Business Car and the manufacturing companies KIA Motors, Hyundai Motor, Hino Motors (Toyota Group), Peugeot Russia, Renault Trucks Vostok, Ferronordic Machines, Volvo and Renault.

The debates between manufacturers and dealers attracted great interest. They were contested by Peugeot, Hyundai Motors, Renault and KIA, who represented the manufacturers, and Atlant-M and TransTechService (a successful dealer network in the Tatarstan and Volga regions) on behalf of the dealers.

Moscow’s Marriott Grand Hotel was also the scene of a discussion on the arrival of the ‘second crisis’, and the effect it could have on autoretail. However, the only presentation given at the Forum that addressed the first crisis was that of Nikolay Zaitsev, the commercial director at Modus. During the crisis, Modus managed to increase its activity almost by 200%. Mr. Zaitsev called on his colleagues not to lose sight of business development in challenging conditions, declaring: “A crisis is a time for opportunities!”

The Autoretail Russia Forum 2011 was the ideal platform to begin dialogue between government structures, dealers and manufacturers. At its second edition, which will take place in Moscow in October 2012, there will be many more topics for discussion. We hope that a lot of good news will be shared too!