However, new management of Chinese part has no mood to enjoy the romantic ceremony. GAC has sent Qiujing Wang and Yulin Xu as vice executive general manager and vice sales general manager repetitively. They are under sales pressure, but what they are facing is GAC Fiat weak foundation except an equipped plant.
John Burton takes the last three years of GAC Fiat as the first phrase, and new team taking over is the second phrase. He comments tactfully “what I want to strength is a successfully big project is contributed to strength plus opportunity”.
GAC Fiat has started to build its sales network 3 year ago when the company just found. Distribution channel has not developed fast enough at the beginning because of the weak beginning period of joint venture and Fiat brand reputation limitation. It has 152 dealers up to this June. The situation is contributed with GAC Fiat product line directly. The company only has one China-made model Fei Xiang. It is unable to support fast channel development. New management of GAC Fiat has to take the reality.
Yulin Xu, as a senior experienced marketer, believes product is foundation. All the marketing strategies are based on products combination. He said GAC Fiat will introduce a hatchback edition Fei Xiang this year. And it will launch a new model at least each year, which excludes successors.
Chinese part has proposed to divide sales department and manufacture separately to increase sales. Yulin Xu said the strategy has already been proven in China by some joint venture companies. For an example, GAC Honda has tested the strategy many years ago, and it is more flexible for company reputation built. John Burton agrees with the opinion. He announced on August 29 night that“I have a good new to announce, we will found a sales business unit”. However, John Burton is still cautious, and said GAC Fiat improvement does not mean totally reformation, it will take steps.
Malchow, CEO of Fiat- Chrysler and Qinghong Zeng, general manager of GAC have agreed to introduce Jeep into GAC Fiat. Jeep has good reputation in Chinese market. As long as its China-made model launching market, it realizes profit at the moment. According to semi-annual report of GAC Fiat on August 29, Jeep under GAC Fiat framework goes well, it probably will be confirmed soon.
