Manufacturer of the Year 2008
Toyota South Africa

Toyota South Africa scooped the Overall Gold Award and also took 1st place in the Rental Section at the 2008 SAVRALA 2008 Manufacturer of the Year Awards. From left: Len von Graevenitz (Vice President Vehicle Sales Dealer Network), Ernie Trautmann (General Manager Vehicle Sales) and Liezl Dodkins (Manager – Car Rental Fleet Sales)

Toyota strikes back

Toyota has made a return to top dog position at the Southern African Vehicle Renting and Leasing Association’s (SAVRALA) Manufacturer of the Year – taking the 2008 award by a mere 0.3 percentage points in a year that saw most manufacturers drop points compared to last year. Colin Windell reports.

Toyota South Africa’s score of 63,7 to take the overall gold award was enough to keep them ahead of Hyundai Automotive (63.4) whose silver award second place performance – albeit 1.0 points down on last year – was enough to put them ahead of last year’s winners, General Motors South Africa, which slipped to third place and the bronze award.

Toyota fought back from fifth overall last year to record a 2.2 percent improvement overall. In the Rental Section top honours went to Toyota with a 3.9 percent improvement over last year with Hyundai in second place and Honda – one of the biggest movers for the year – moving up 5.1% from fifth in the segment last year to third place.

This segment also saw the only other big move of the year with Renault improving its score by a massive 6.5% – with Nissan the biggest loser dropping 3.3% to finish ninth overall.

Although Nissan did record a drop of 7.6% in the Leasing Section, its score of 68.6 was enough to keep it at the top of the pile, just 0.1 points ahead of Ford/Mazda and 0.5 points ahead of third-placed General Motors.

The Leasing segment, which probably best reflects the volatility of the passenger car market this year, saw some manufacturers taking a pounding with Mitsubishi dropping 10.6%, Land Rover 8.7% and Volvo 8.6% – with only Honda (up 5.4%) and Subaru (up 1.1%) making any meaningful positive inroads.

With input obtained from a detailed survey of the members of SAVRALA, which is conducted twice during the course of the year, awards are bestowed upon those motor manufacturers and importers who have provided the respective Rental and Leasing and Fleet Management companies with exemplary service in areas of communication, service support and value. Makes and models are specifically not taken into account.

According to Anthony Calcutt from KA Smart – the person responsible for the collection and analyses of the survey data – areas showing the biggest improvements were ‘Parts Availability’ and ‘Preparedness to embrace new and/or effective theft prevention measures’.

“The question with the best score overall indicating a current strength in the industry is ‘Product Reliability’,” he says. “Those questions that scored worst point to areas in which the Rental members require more effort and input from the manufacturers and relate to ‘Technical Training and Regular Technical Representative Contact’ as well as the ability to provide appropriate support in integrated processes such as IT system links.

“Manufacturer labour rates showed a marked decline in score since the last survey, reflecting the increased economic pressures everyone is currently under.”

The Leasing and Fleet Management top position remains unchanged from last year with Nissan in first place albeit at a much reduced margin with only 0.6 percentage points splitting the top three.

“The support provided to these SAVRALA members at a dealer level was recognised as being the only area that showed any real signs of improvement over last year’s scores,” says Calcutt. “Communication and marketing, including pre-launch product information is one area that is deemed to be critical, enabling members to be in a position of knowledge and providing the ability to quote and sell new product when it is launched.

“It is unfortunate this question is one that often receives the lower scores and only 7 out of the 22 manufacturers included in the survey managed to score above 50% for ‘Manufacturer Contact’.

“The willingness and amount of effort that goes into completing this survey by the different SAVRALA rental and fleet management companies, as well as the acceptance, input and feedback from the different motor manufacturers, goes a long way in strengthening the relationships between these business partners.”

Paul Pauwen, president of SAVRALA, says: “The past 12 months have been challenging on all fronts. In a nutshell, it is safe to state the world will never be the same.

“South Africa has also changed tremendously. It is nevertheless a testimony to the strength of our institutions that the changes have been democratic and our economy has been resilient in the face of a potential global collapse. In fact, at the risk of sounding over optimistic, it seems that South Africa is, once again, weathering the storm better than most countries and I am hopeful that will see an improvement in business confidence in the near future.

“Significantly I am also proud to report that, thanks to Sarel Visagie, the SAVRALA Academy will soon be a reality. It will offer upgraded levels of qualifications in fleet management and updated rental modules will also be made available.

“At the risk of stating the obvious, vehicle manufacturers and importers are key partners of our businesses and I’d like to think that the association provides a good platform to promote sound relationships. In 2009 we plan to introduce into the questionnaires a section relating to the BBBEE scorecard.”

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Many thanks to all the motor manufacturers and importers for their generous support of the 2008 SAVRALA Manufacturer of the Year Awards