Fiat sales here have been on the slide for a many years, so what does Adrian Walsh, the new face of Fiat in Ireland, hope to achieve? Paddy Comynspoke to him about his plans
SOME WOULD call it a poison chalice, but the task of steering Fiat's Irish operation is one that certainly won't be easy. Fiat sales have slid in Ireland since the year 2000, when their Punto was the biggest selling car in the country and as of April this year, they had just 1.35 per cent of the market.
In 2007, they sold just 2,502 new cars in Ireland, and that compares to the year 2000, when they sold 17,259 cars and had 7.48 per cent of the market. Fiat in 2000 sold more cars in both the month of January and February, than they did in the whole of 2007.
Headhunted from BMW Ireland where he was national sales manager, Adrian Walsh sits at Fiat's Dublin headquarters, overlooking the picturesque majesty of the Red Cow roundabout. Walsh's rise from IT Channel Management to COO of Fiat Group Automobiles Ireland has taken just five years.
But as a rising talent in the Irish motor industry, the question must be asked: what has he done to deserve this?
"When it broke in November, I got a lot of calls from people saying 'What the hell are you doing?', but Fiat approached me in June last year and I was intrigued. I mystery shopped a few of the dealers, and then when I drove a few of the Fiat products, I realised that the product was better than I thought."
Walsh has been in the job since December, and settling in has not been without its challenges. "It has been a bit of a baptism of fire, but we are changing the way we are doing our marketing, and putting some training programmes in place. One of the things I want to do is get everyone in the network trained properly. A lot of the guys are very good, but have never had a constructed training programme. On the sales training side it will look after things like product knowledge and handover."
What were the reasons then, for Fiat's dramatic slide in fortunes over the past eight years? Was it just down to a changing market, poor product or poor management? "I would love to be able to say it was one thing and be able to do something about that, but it was a number of things.
"The dealer representation suffered, we let some good dealers go and some other dealers we didn't pay enough attention to, and they went multi-franchise. I think the focus was on volume more so than how we did it.
"We were overly reliant on discounting and hire drives. All you are doing in that case is buying a market. However, it was not just down to mistakes on the part of Fiat. If you look at the improvements in market share to emerging brands such as Kia, Skoda, Hyundai, Seat and Mazda to a degree, they weren't necessarily strong even in 2003; but since then they have gone up 4.3 per cent and we have gone down 4.5 per cent in the same period. So you can see that we have lost out there too."
So what is Walsh's vision of just how to move the process forwards?
"I am quite critical of the marketing we have done. When I first came I said that I had no recall of the advertising we had done. The last ad I could remember from Fiat was a Ritmo ad decades ago. To be fair when I reviewed some of the advertising it was very good, but we are a small market with small budgets and we didn't have the ads out there long enough for good recall."
Walsh therefore intends to set about shouting about the things that Fiat do well and getting motorists into their cars. "I think this is a journey, there is not one thing we can do. For anyone buying a Fiat now, they should at least have a very good buying experience. We have a loyal customer base, but we are not getting enough conquests.
"We did a test campaign recently for Bravo, and while it wasn't hugely successful in terms of the numbers of people, it was successful in terms of the number of conversions we got from other brands. Once we convince people to try the car, by and large we exceed their expectations."
Changing the perception about Fiat residual values appears to be one of the largest challenges facing Walsh with the new Fiat regime. Irish buyers tend to think that Fiat products, be it Fiat themselves, or indeed Alfa Romeo, don't hold their value as well as other brands.
"I think the single biggest problem we have is of perception. I think the vast majority of people don't know how good our product is. There is a perception that the cars are not as good as they are, and there is a perception that the cars are not as reliable as they are. We have fewer issues than some well-established brands. We have a four-year warranty with AA cover, and the AA are very happy with us because they don't get very many call-outs."
Fiat saw registrations in Europe rise 8.5 per cent on the year in April to 115,509 cars. The Fiat brand is growing fast outside of Italy, thanks to new models and an improvement of its dealer network, and this is despite a downturn in sales on its home market of Italy.
With the change in VRT taking into account CO2 emissions, Fiat Ireland should be in good shape, with 90 per cent of their range coming down in price. They will have four different models in Band A, and more to come.
There will also be new products to look forward to from Alfa Romeo, such as the Mini rival, the MiTo. "The MiTo will be very important to us and there is the prospect of selling 500 of them a year if we can get them."
However, the main focus for Walsh will be the challenge of resurrecting flagging Fiat sales. "We have a strong three-year plan in place, and that is for a 5 per cent market share. We have some exciting new product coming down the line, and we hope to increase the number of dealers from the present 22, to 30 by the middle of 2009."
Success in the car industry is a numbers game, and Walsh's infectious enthusiasm would have you convinced of his success. Ultimately it will be scores on the scoreboard that will be the judge of his tenure. And for that we will just have to wait and see.