起立的英语怎么读汽车营销类外文文献翻译、英文翻译汽车行业渠道的转变

2021年1月19日发(作者：umbrella什么意思)
原文

Changing
Channels
In
The
Automotive
Industry:
The
Future of Automotive Marketing and Distribution

Who will be the winners and losers in the revolution that is radically reshaping
the marketing, distribution and selling of automobiles? Will the vehicle manufacturers
and
their
franchised- dealer
networks
be
able
to
overcome
years
of
inertia
and
complacency to pioneer and execute new concepts that will strengthen and extend the
value
of
their
brands?
Or
will
nimbler,
more
imaginative
retailers
or
software
companies get there first?

The transformation of the business of selling cars and trucks is happening before
our eyes at an incredible pace -- promising to change forever an industry that has long
been noted for its high costs, poor service and extremely unpleasant selling process.
Auto manufacturers have competed fiercely among themselves to drive out cost and
meet consumer needs for cheaper and better cars and trucks. Now the survivors face
new
threats
from
outside
the
industry
that
might
thwart
their
renewed
interest
in
building strong, lasting relationships with their customers.

Entrepreneurs
have
dissected
the
cost-value
equation
and
come
up
with
new
retail
concepts.
Their
stories
have
been
persuasive
enough
to
attract
hundreds
of
millions
of
dollars
in
public
equity
investment
and
persuade
dozens
of
fiercely
independent car dealers to sell out. Internet technology has lowered entry barriers for
other
entrepreneurs
with
new
ideas
about
helping
customers
find,
evaluate
and
buy
new
vehicles.
These
patterns
are
consistent
with
revolutions
in
other
consumer
durables
markets
that
effectively
transferred
market
power
from
manufacturers
to
retailers.

Consumers are the only clear winners in this battle. While we are not sure which
vehicle manufacturers will survive, we are confident that winning will require a better
understanding
of
the
life-cycle
value
equations
of
both
cars
and
buyers,
and
the
development of innovative strategies to capture that value.

FORCES OF CHANGE

From the days of Henry Ford's production line, the automobile industry has been
based on a
cover high fixed costs.

Dealer networks were created as logical extensions of the
The
networks
were
designed
to
hold
inventory,
leverage
private
capital
(without
threatening the manufacturers' control) and service and support what was then a less
reliable
and
more
maintenance-intensive
product.
Those
networks
generally
were
built
around
entrepreneurs
focused
on
a
defined
geographic
area,
selling
one
or
at
most two brands.

Despite its longevity, the traditional dealer channel leaves many people unhappy.
High customer acquisition costs motivate dealers to convert store traffic to sales using
aggressive tactics that extract differential margins based on customers' willingness to
pay. Frequent well-publicized rebates have taught buyers to mistrust sticker prices and
negotiate
from
cost
up,
rather
than
sticker
down.
As
a
result,
dealers
often
find
themselves
competing
not
against
another
brand,
but
against
a
same-make
dealer
across town. This acute competition has almost bid away dealer profit on the sale of
new passenger cars in the United States (with some profits still available on sales of
trucks, sport utility vehicles and luxury cars).

Shrinking dealer margins do not translate into happy customers: Most customers
(approximately
four
out
of
five)
dislike
the
purchase
process,
and
many
still
come
away feeling cheated and mistreated. This strong antipathy is largely responsible for
the rapid growth of Internet- based services that offer alternative means
of gathering
information
on
cars,
soliciting
price
quotes
and,
in
some
cases,
conducting
transactions.

SURFING THE NET FOR PROFITS

Obviously the Internet is a major enabler of change in auto distribution. Many of
the most important auto industry innovators today are developing Web-based services,
leading
some
to
predict
that
the
most
important
automotive
company
of
the
next
century will be a software-based company. Republic Industries, for instance, expects
sales to reach $$1 billion on the World Wide Web by the year 2000. Estimates vary, but
some
studies
have
shown
that
with
some
cars,
as
many
as
40
percent
of
customers
gather information from the Internet. A smaller but growing percentage of customers
demonstrate
what
is
called
shopping
behavior,
or
soliciting
price
quotations
and
availability information prior to the actual purchase.

The dramatic growth and power of Internet technology have greatly reduced the
cost
of
obtaining
information
on
features,
price
and
availability.
Consequently,
customers are better equipped to extract what they want from dealerships. One of the
pioneers of Internet marketing, Inc., is working to speed response time
from
its
participating
dealers
because
it
has
learned
that
a
staggeringly
high
proportion of its customers -- 64 percent -- buy within 24 hours of using its service to
get price and availability quotes. The Internet offers new and better ways to perform
many sales and marketing functions and makes it possible for manufacturers to have
more
and
richer
two-way
communications
directly
with
consumers.
It
has
also
provided, for the rest time, the capability for channel marketing on a national or even
international
scale,
attacking
further
the
value
of
the
traditional,
geographically
depend channel.


DEALERS STILL PART OF EQUATION

No one is suggesting, though, that auto dealers will disappear. Ironically, changes
in
cars
and
trucks
themselves
are
making
dealers
more
important.
Consumers
have
more
choices
of
brands
and
models
than
ever
before.
Improved
durability
and
reliability and faster design cycles have narrowed the differences among competing
products
in
the
same
category.
Brand
loyalty
increasingly
derives
not
from
the
product
itself
but
from
the
total
purchase
and
ownership
experience.
Numerous
studies show that customer satisfaction has become a much more critical competitive
differentiator and a greater influence on repurchase loyalty than the car itself. And it is
the dealer that controls these levers today. (See Exhibit II.) This explains the intense
efforts many vehicle manufacturers have made to set standards for, measure and even
base some dealer compensation on customer satisfaction scores.

As
a
result
of
the
high-cost,
low-satisfaction
proposition
provided
by
the
traditional dealer channel in general, many players have recently moved to capitalize
on
opportunities
afforded
by
improving
the
channel-value
equation.
Entrepreneurs
with access to public capital have strategic designs to modernize auto distribution. Six
dealer
groups
in
the
United
States
went
public
in
1996-7.
Collectively
they
soared
past the $$4 billion mark in revenue in 1997, up by more than 30 percent from 1996,
with most of the growth coming from additional acquisitions of existing dealers.

The most prominent new automotive industry entrepreneur in the United States
is H. Wayne Huizenga, chairman of Republic Industries. Mr. Huizenga has a proven
track
record
as
an
innovator
who
has
revolutionized
the
waste
disposal
and
video
rental industries. Republic owns the nation's
largest
group
of franchised
automotive
dealerships,
operates
the
AutoNation
USA
used-vehicle
megastore
chain
and
owns
and operates several car rental businesses. Republic is currently on an extraordinary
acquisition
campaign
for
new-car
business
dealerships.
Even
though
Republic
has
almost single- handedly doubled the market price for dealerships, it does not appear to
be slowing down.

Nonetheless,
manufacturers
seem
to
be
following,
not
leading,
the
revolution.
Many
are
still
being
pushed
or
kicked
along
the
path
of
change.
There
are
real
questions
whether
their
late
--
and
in
some
cases
half-hearted
--
responses
will
be
enough to protect the traditional position of the vehicle manufacturer as the caller of
shots in the auto industry.

VISION FOR THE FUTURE

Now that we see serious cracks in the walls protecting the traditional automotive
distribution model, what will the future bring? Both the underlying drivers of change
in automotive retailing and the trends already under way help answer that question. In
addition,
it
is
helpful
to
compare
the
automobile
industry
with
other
industries
that
have experienced distribution-channel evolution and look at the lessons they learned.

Most

consumer-durable
industries
have
undergone
substantial
distribution- channel
evolution resulting from changes in economics, regulations or technologies. Each one has unique
circumstances,
but
we
can
see
three
relatively
common,
distinct
stages
in
these
channel
restructurings:

Stage
One:
This
is
marked
by
major
improvements
in
value
delivered,
mostly
reductions
in
cost.
Usually
the
cost
reductions
stem
from
consolidation
and
rationalization in the channel as better concepts or bigger players drive out marginal
or
small
players.
The
bigger
players
use
their
cost
advantage
to
reduce
prices
and
often to improve service, variety and convenience.

Stage Two: Here channel evolution is focused on meeting the needs of specific
customer
segments.
Channel
functions
are
unbundled
and
restructured
into
more
efficient or more appealing formats for defined groups of customers. Customer value
is further enhanced through lower prices, better service or greater variety.