My youngest son, Alex, loved Legos. Still does. For Christmas or his birthday, he would often get those pre-fab Lego kits that would yield a racecar, Space Shuttle, robot, what have you.
One quick glance at the instructions and 10 minutes later, he’d be done. So much for the “hours and hours of enjoyment” promised in the ads.
But he was never content to build just what was on the box. He’d dig into his vast collection of Lego pieces and set about making improvements. Soon the Space Shuttle looked like it belonged in a Star Wars battle scene or the robot would have some extra appendages/secret weapons.
Sounds a lot like business, doesn’t it? You build something, solidify it and then start looking at ways to improve it. A new product here, maybe another location there. Pretty soon you have a unique and stronger operation. Instead of “hours and hours of enjoyment,” though, you want years and years of success and growth.
We want the same thing for you, too.
For the past few years, we have focused on building a model trade magazine, one you can count on for important and educational information that you can apply to improve your business. Hence our tagline: Dedicated to Building Your Business.
That meant finding the right pieces – in the issues we tackle every month, in our staff of expert contributing editors and in the packaging of the final product you hold in your hands right now.
With that solid base now in place, we have turned our attention to extending our reach with new features to deliver an even stronger Tire Review.
This past August, we re-launched a new and improved Web site – tirereview.com – that features daily industry news updates and a wealth of additional features. Best of all, our Web site remains a totally free service and is accessible from anywhere in the world.
And that brings us to another exciting addition. Effective Feb. 1, the leading tire trade magazines serving North America and Europe have joined forces. Tire Review and the publisher of Tyres & Accessories in the U.K. and Neue Reifenzeitung in Germany have entered into an exclusive agreement to share editorial content.
Well-respected chief editor and publisher (and good friend) Klaus Haddenbrock and his team do an outstanding job covering every facet of the European tire industry. And, from their unique positions, both magazines have also been looking at the fast-growing tire markets in eastern Europe, Russia, India and China.
In fact, T&A and NRZ recently produced three extensive special reports on the tire industries of China, Russia and India – must-reads for anyone interested in doing business in those markets. Those three reports are now available on our Web site.
What does this mean to you? Simple. The tire industry is now fully a global one. Major makers are expanding into countries that 20 years ago were considered third world. Thanks to technology sharing and joint venture agreements, indigenous producers have become significant players. Consumer markets – retail and commercial – in those same countries are growing at the speed of light.
What happens in one corner of the world has a direct impact on North America, and vice versa. Having the ability, through this agreement, to share with you information about other tire markets can only help you and your business. Conversely, news stories and articles we develop for Tire Review and Tire Review Online will now reach an expanded audience around the world.
Finally, last month, we announced our parent company’s acquisition of two magazines serving the trucking industry – Fleet Equipment and Transport Technology Today (T3).
Today, Babcox publishes 12 monthly magazines and a host of supplements covering every aspect of the automotive parts and service market, and now the truck equipment management and trucking technology markets.
The greatest asset of any magazine is its knowledge and expertise. As far as Tire Review readers are concerned, we will be able to leverage that knowledge and expertise to provide even better coverage of commercial truck tire issues. For those of you with commercial light truck and medium truck tire customers, having that fleet-side viewpoint can only lead to greater success.
We are proud of these new additions. Not just because we deliver the most comprehensive coverage of the tire industry, but because we’ve added yet more tools to your arsenal. Tire Review is, and always will be, all about you and your success.
And we’re far from done.
