Bizcon Rolls Out Combined Bridgestone/Firestone, Bandag Operations
Ten months after it formally took over Bandag Inc. in a $1.01 billion deal, Bridgestone/Firestone North American Tire formally unveiled Bridgestone Bandag Tire Solutions and its new battle plans for the North American medium truck tire market.
Combining Bandag with BFNAT’s truck tire group, the resulting BBTS will go to market as one cohesive unit, a larger and flatter sales organization with a new emphasis on working more closely with dealers, retreaders and fleets.
Formally unveiled at BFNAT’s – rather BBTS’ – recent Bizcon 12 commercial dealer, retreader and truckstop operator meeting, held in New York City, BBTS will handle all of the sales, marketing, support and engineering for both new tires and retreading system products (including precure tread rubber).
The new subsidiary will be headed by Saul Soloman as president, and, save for its sales and marketing groups, will be headquartered at Bandag’s former Muscatine, Iowa, offices. BBTS sales and marketing, under Singh Ahluwalia, as president of those operations, will be based in Nashville.
Some 1,000 U.S. and Canadian commercial dealers, retreaders and truckstop operators attended the two-day conference, and got a complete look at how BBTS will be structured and focused.
With the consolidation, BBTS reconfigured its sales regions, moving from four regions in the U.S. and Canada to eight regions – seven for the U.S. and one for all of Canada. The regions and their new general managers are Canada, Jim West; Northeast, Hugh Griffin; North Central, Brian Ebert; Great Lakes, Steve Sutherland; Southeast, Jim Kohrs; South Central, John Boynton; Southwest, Dave Redfern; and Northwest, Gary Clark.
Within each region will be dealer sales managers, regional fleet sales managers, and territory sales managers, all working closely with dealer, retreader and fleet customers. BBTS will also address what it calls “strategic channels” with managers dedicated to national fleet accounts, OE, and truckstops.
“This structure has been created to flatten our business; not complicate it,” said Art Campagnoni, vice president of sales. “It places our senior field management closer to every customer than ever before.”
Bandag will remain as a franchise operation, and there will be no changes to the Bridgestone, Firestone or Dayton new tire brands. However, BBTS officials did not address retreading equipment development, sales or support.
BBTS officials said that over the next 90 days all group salespeople would be cross-trained so that they “will be indistinguishable” from each other.
“We’re not about just selling tires, or retreads, or tire solutions,” Soloman told Bizcon attendees. “We’re about creating and delivering the best of all three – whether your needs are just tires, just retreads or a completely customized solution.”
The new organization wasn’t the only topic covered during the two-day conference. Rising tire prices and ever-increasing raw material costs were addressed by Mark Emkes, chairman and CEO of Bridgestone Americas Holding and BFNAT.
Without getting into detail, Emkes said Bridgestone Corp. has a global effort to control its own raw materials destiny by taking a vertically integrated approach. Emkes said BAH and BFNAT are looking to “create the most efficient vertical integration structure in our industry.
“A highly reliable and manageable structure assures consistent delivery of the highest quality raw materials we need to build our products and deliver them the right way at the right time,” he said. By investing “heavily in our supply chain operations, spanning materials such as natural rubber, synthetic rubber, carbon black and steel cord,” Bridgestone feels it can “guarantee a constant supply of the highest quality materials.”
Bizcon 13 will be held Mar. 30-31, 2009 , at Miami ’s Fountainbleu Resort.
