Hino has big plans for 2016

Hino South Africa is looking at a repeat performance this year of its record year during 2015.

Despite an overall depression of three percent in the truck and bus market at the end of 2015, Hino South Africa’s sales ended on an all-time high of 4 094. This was accompanied by an increase in total market share to 13,4 percent.

“We will continue to work closely with Hino Motors in Japan and our dealers to develop Vision 2020, which was announced last year as our ambitious strategy to become the number one truck brand in South Africa by 2020.

“The key here is building trust between all the parties involved, so that we have a unified front in tackling our challenges,” says Hino South Africa vice president, Ernie Trautmann.

A new initiative for the dealers will be the introduction of a learnership programme, to encourage younger people to enter the truck retailing business. This joint venture between Hino SA and its dealers will be a one-year development programme which focuses on selling.

A new strategy in after-sales service will monitor the cause of vehicle-off-road cases at the dealers, so as to develop countermeasures to minimise downtime for customers.

Customers can also look forward to closer cooperation between Hino South Africa, its dealers and Toyota Financial Services (TFS) in providing them with truck finance and optional service and maintenance plans. In December, TFS financed 48 percent of Hino’s sales – more than double the target of 20 percent.

A new initiative from Hino Motors Japan, which will benefit the local company, is to encourage information sharing among its various distributors worldwide, such as details of best practices.

The company is now also involved in service reporting to Hino Motors Japan, in addition to the previous vehicle and parts sales reporting. This will put the local company in line for a possible third award in the annual Regional Distributor of the Year competition.

“The objective for Hino and its dealers is to stay positive this year, which has started in an environment of doom and gloom. We believe our customers already know they are benefiting significantly from the Hino Total Support programme, which is driven by our pledge to stick to our promises, goals and objectives,” concludes Trautmann.