Steve Wager, SCANIA China’s new MD recently faced the media the first time since his arrival on the job, accompanied by Staffan Arlebo, SCANIA’s truck sale director, he shared his views with the YUNSHUREN reporter onChina’s heavy truck market and marketing idea accumulated in his 20 years in the industry.

SCANIA China’s new president Steve Wager

Expansion: Rental and Used Vehicle Businesses

　　Steve Wager, British citizen, strong built and tall, has an elegant Chinese name—Wen Zheng. As we go through his resume, we notice that he first entered truck industry as an administrative and financial director in DAF(Netherland) TruckFrancebetween 1998 and 2002.

　　Between 2002 and 2012,Steve Wager worked in SCANIA Britain as financial and rental director. He has been involved in used vehicle and truck rental businesses when he worked in the above mentioned two posts and has successfully introduced the experience which is now mature in Europe and in developing countries likeSouth Africa, so he intends to bring vehicle and used vehicle rental businesses toChinaas well.

　　His plan is to begin short-term rental business inChina, with a rental term usually at 6-12 months, which could alleviate the pressure of logistic enterprises when they want to purchase vehicles at the peak of business.

Communication:China’s Market is Getting Mature

　　Steve Wager attaches much importance to communications with customers and has visited many SCANIA customers since he took the post this August. He got most genuine opinions from the customers and is fully confident of China’s heavy truck market.

　　Steve Wager made comparisons betweenChina’s market and those of other countries: compared to the Chinese market,Britainis more mature or of more intense competition;South Africais a market in development, and French market is comparatively more mature. He thinks, “The rapid development of China’s economy will enable the experience of Europe to quickly adapt toChina’s market.China’s heavy truck market will not have the explosive growth that appeared some years ago and a new type of sustainable and stable growth will appear instead. Although this year SCANIA recorded a considerable growth compared to last year, but the total volume of the market segment is still small, so the intense competition in the market will compel transport enterprises and individuals to be more efficient and cut waste. And highly efficient transport is the advantage of SCANIA. our advantage in efficiency and operation economy is more obvious when the transport distance gets longer.”

Implementation: TOE Solutions

　　Steve Wager says he intends to instruct customers to cast a broader vision and look at the vehicle’s cost in the total life cycle and its total operation economy. He emphasizes the following feedback through communication with customers: the fuel efficiency of SCANIA compared with local brands, the gap is between 5 to 8 litres per 100 kilometres, a significant cost saving per year for a transport operator, especially the uptime in long-haul transport is very reliable.

　　The concept SCANIA proposes toward vehicle operation is TOE(Total Operation Economy), which focuses not only on cost, but uptime and profit.

　　The fleet management system equipped on SCANIA vehicles enables real-time monitor vehicles. It not only monitor the use of vehicles, but the performance of drivers, assisting customers to analyze and enhance transport efficiency. This system can also set goals for every driver, for instance fuel consumption goals. Maintenance reservation can also be set through the system to notify the driver when is the time to maintain the vehicle in the garage and pre-order the work place through nearby dealers. Long distance fault analysis can be executed for faulted vehicles broken in a faraway place. Meanwhile the driver support system can real-time correct a driver’s driving habit and help improve his skils in a short period and realizes the dual goal of fuel-saving and wearing reduction.

　　SCANIA fleet management system and driver support system can help operators manage vehicles and improve driving skills.

　　Finally SCANIA truck sales director Staffan Arlebo introduced the 2016 SCANIA Driver Competitions, which, applying fleet management system, will select SCANIA drivers who are excellent in actual driving performance to directly enter track racing, this is a newly added screening form specially designed forChinamarket. This form is expected to show what drivers do on the highway, how they drive vehicles, what habit they have and how to save fuel, etc. The qualifying contest inChinaarea, except enlisting those drivers who are qualified for fleet management system, will leave over half quota to drivers who passed theory test.

　　SCANIA is fully prepared for the new rule of State Standard No. 1589, providing updated product strategy to accommodate market demand. Meanwhile Steve sharply criticized that it is blind-minded that currently logistic enterprises pursuit large horsepower trucks and the new rule can rightly liberate market from such irrational tendency.

　　SCANIA’s rising sale this year, the planned implementation of Beijing-VI regulationsand the appointment of Steve, seem to presage the new round of impact to be launched by SCANIA Trucks in China’s market.