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

 

‡ M.Hussain 0936120
‡ Ashara Dana 0936109
‡ Abdul Wasay 0936101
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‡ Bridgestone way: Their hope is that their customers will trust the
safety of a product because it carries the Bridgestone name, a true
mark of quality.

‡ Bridgestone Corporate Mission: ³Serve society with superior

quality´.

‡ Bridgestone Corporate Strategy: Apart from a pursuit of

superior quality in all our corporate activities ² beginning with
products, services and technologies ² we respect the cultures and
values and comply with the laws and regulations of the countries
where we operate.


‡ To establish the status of being the undisputed world

No.1 tire and rubber company both in name and reality.
   | 

‡ Basics and Principles: To always bear in mind business Basics

and Principles.

‡ Philosophy and Spirit: To keep ³Philosophy´ and ³Spirit´ since

the time of corporate establishment and to follow ³Bridgestone Way´.

‡ Business Development: To proceed with the group and global

business development on a foundation of the strong Japanese
business.
|    
 

‡ Situation Analysis

± User Available: The first and the foremost thing to check before starting the
marketing efforts in any region is to find the available users.

± Competitive Environment: The next thing to check after finding a potential

market is to check the existing competition in the market.
Ä   

‡ In Pakistan Bridgestone is mainly targeting the

companies / dealers / fleets which own trucks and buses
or can maintain stock of tires to supply to bus and truck
drivers.

‡ Instead on contacting individual customers they

approach dealers, fleets and corporate sectors which
own their own transportation vehicles such as lucky
cement Coca Cola, etc.
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‡ Divided into three categories

± Corporate: This includes customers such as Lucky Cement, Coca Cola,

Chevron, etc which have their own load carrying trucks. Such accounts are of
major importance to the sales teams as it adds reputation to the existing profile
of their product.

± Fleets: These are individual transporters who own at least 5 or more vehicles.
Such transporters usually provide travel services to passengers and have a
requirement 1 tire for each vehicle every month.

± Dealers: These customers buy tires in bulk and are further selling it to
individual customers either in credit or on cash.
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‡ Market Access
± To understand the market access strategy being followed by
Bridgestone we need to look into the background of their
existence in Pakistan.

± Bridgestone tires are being imported in Pakistan through

³ITOCHU CORPORATION ³. The main importer who has
invested their equity is Rehman Tire Incorporation with ITOCHU
acting as their agentsá

± ITOCHU is not only working as agents for the trade but also
provide sales support to RTI along with their own sales team.
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‡ Market Access
± Currently sales team at ITOCHU is selling 20% of the total
Bridgestone tires being imported in Pakistan. The remaining
80% of the accounts are handled by RTI. Therefore Bridgestone
is using a ³Hybrid Marketing´ strategy.

± Since RTI does note have specialized sales team, most of the
accounts are created by the sales team at ITOCHU which are
later transferred to RTI. This mean 80% of the total sales which
are being handled by RTI are from the accounts which were
once created and handled by the sales team at ITOCHU.
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‡ Market Access
± ITOCHU¶s idea behind providing sales support is to increase
sales of Bridgestone tires in Pakistan which would mean an
increase in the total quantity being imported by Rehman Tires.

± The sales team at ITOCHU and RTI works on an understanding

that the 2 will not approaching the same customer at one point in
time and even the dealers that they make should not have
common end users.

± The sales team does not prefer contacting individual customers

or the direct end users. Usually small sales are made through
authorized dealers.
 

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‡ The sales team at ITOCHU and RTI try to create
demand in the market for the selling their tires.

‡ Before putting in the effort to create demand in any

market it is very important for the sales team to analyze
the qualifying prospects in any particular region.

 

‡ Buying Ability: They need to check whether the market has
potential transporters who would be ready to bear the cost of high
quality tires against the safety benefit they would get.

‡ Need Analysis: They conduct researches and make comparative

studies for Bridgestone against it competitors in the market such as
Dunlop, Good Year and some Chinese brands. Through those
research and comparative studies they try to show the benefits
consumers can get upon using Bridgestone such as .
± Reduced fuel consumption
± Better speed
± Durability of the tire itself
± Warranty

 

‡ Follow up: It is very important for the sales teams to closely follow
up with their customers,; corporate, dealers and fleets for three main
reasons.
± They need to ensure on a regular basis that their competitor should not take
their market share due to non availability of Bridgestone tires.

± The sales teams also needs to make sure that their tires are not being bought by
some unknown customer in bulk who miss may use their tires by dumping it in
some other region and creating an artificial shortage for the genuine customers.

± Sales team usually discourages sales to whole sellers as they disturb the
existing sales structures by contacting customer who were initially purchasing
from dealers. This ultimately leads to conflicts between the dealers.
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‡ The sales structure at Bridgestone is not defined as they
follow a mix geographical specialization plus customer
specialization.
 
  

 
‡ The sales team is divided into three groups. Each group
is lead by a sales manager and have certain areas
allocated for certain type of customers.
± GM SALES / MARKETING
     

  
  
 

Karachi Multan Karachi
Sargodha Faislabad Lahore
Sadqabad Hyderabad 
 

  Jhang Karachi
Talagang Rawalpindi Lahore
Shaikhupura Texila Sialkot
Mianwali 
  Larkana
Khushali Bhorewala
Gujranwala DG Khan
Sialkot Nawabshah
Sahiwal Mandi Bahauddin
Moro Chiniot
Sadqabad Faisalabad
Rawalpindi
Gujrat

Each manager has a sales team of 5 persons.

 


 | Ä
Ä

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‡ Corporate: The corporate segment of the target market comprises
of just 2-5% of the total sales. This segment might not be give huge
volumes but it is of great importance to the company.

‡ Fleets: Fleets also comprises of 2-5% to the total sales and are
therefore are of easier importance. The idea behind dealing directly
with fleets is to cover those areas where dealers might not be able
to deliver properly or the transporters are not even interested to visit
the dealers themselves.

‡ Dealers: Sales through dealers hold a major portion in the total

sales of tires. It has contribution of around 90-95% to the total sales.
There can be more than one dealer in a region depending upon the
total potential of the market and the potential of the dealer to
maintain tire stocks.
  
 


‡ ]
    
      á  

     
     

  
  
á

‡ 
    
      

 á            

 
      á
± The policy for credits and compensation varies for each
segment.
‡ Corporate Tires sold on credit to corporate sectors have longer credit periods as they
are trusted customers.

‡ Fleets With fleets most of the sales are made on cash. AS these are not very regular
of dependable customers therefore selling on credit can be a great risk for the company.

‡ Dealers: Sales made to dealers are on both credit and cash.

 |




‡ Sales promotion activities are often carried out by
arranging seminars and providing materials such as
brochures and calendars to the customer and dealers to
enhance sales.

‡ Buntings and other decoration material is provided to the

dealers specially to promote the Bridgestone tires in
comparison to the available competitors¶ tires with the
same dealers.
 



‡ Bridgestone was selling 1600 tires in 2006. This
increased to 2000 tires in 2008 and currently in 2009/10
they sold 2500 tires. The sales has a target to increase
the sales further and bring it to 4000 tires annually.