Local chief primed to drive Ford sales
Casper Kruger has 3-billion new reasons to avoid distractions and concentrate on marketing Ford vehicles. Ford Southern Africa announced last week that it was spending R3bn to increase production capacity at its Silverton, Pretoria, assembly plant. The injection will increase annual capacity from 110,000 to 127,000 vehicles and enable the introduction of a new offroad model, the Raptor.
Manufacturing, though, is the last thing on Kruger’s mind. He says he was installed as MD in 2017 because the company needs someone who truly understands the local market — someone who knows what buttons to press to keep South African motorists happy and who can relate to dealers and corporate customers.
As the first homegrown MD since US car giant Ford bought back control of the company in 1998, having disinvested during apartheid, Kruger appears well placed to fulfil those roles. He was Ford brand national sales manager in 2007-09 before leaving to head Toyota SA’s Hino truck division. He rejoined Ford in April and took over the reins after Jeff Nemeth returned to the US in June.
Ford doubled its local market share during Nemeth’s seven-year reign. His past few months were tainted by the Kuga saga, in which dozens of sport utility vehicles (SUVs) burst into flames but, remarkably, recent Ford sales have been higher than they were a year ago, before the crisis broke. Such is Ford’s obsession with further improving sales and marketing, though, that Kruger will focus almost exclusively on this side of the business.
Nemeth and his US predecessors were absolute monarchs of all Ford’s SA activities, including the Silverton assembly plant and Struandale engine factory in Port Elizabeth. Kruger will leave all that to Ockert Berry, SAbased head of operations for Ford Middle East and Africa (MEA). “To worry about manufacturing would distract me from marketing,” he says.
So despite Kruger bearing the MD title, he says: “Ockert is at the same leadership level as me.” But who is the ultimate boss? “I suppose the buck stops with me,” he says. “But Ockert and I talk and decide what is best for the company.”
Both report to Jacques Brent, Ford Southern Africa’s former director of sales and marketing who now oversees the company as president of Ford MEA. He is Kruger’s former boss and poached him back from Toyota SA, where he had risen to overall head of vehicle sales and dealer network.
Kruger’s appointment was a surprise to many, including some of his new colleagues. Besides sales growth, the company was transformed under Nemeth from an inefficient, low-volume producer of several models, to a high-volume producer of one: the Ford Ranger bakkie.
For the past couple of years, Ranger has been fighting the Toyota Hilux for the title of SA’s best-selling vehicle. It’s also exported to more than 140 markets around the world.
It was widely assumed that Nemeth would be replaced with another US executive: SA is usually a stepping-stone on the corporate ladder for lifelong Ford employees.
Brent, however, thought the time was right for a marketing blitz. Ford, for all its sales improvement, is still far behind market leaders Toyota and Volkswagen. Toyota, with its broad range of products, dominates the overall vehicle market, while VW is well ahead on cars.
Besides Ranger, Ford has pockets of success, such as the Fiesta small car and Ecosport compact SUV, but not the spread of its bigger rivals.
Kruger says success starts with providing “the right product at the right price at the right time”. But it also requires customer satisfaction and relationships. And it’s here where his inside knowledge can make a difference, he says.
The Kuga episode was a public relations disaster. Whatever may have happened behind the scenes, Ford’s painfully slow public response gave the impression of a company in denial.
Kruger suggests it may have been the symptom of a deeper problem. “Perhaps a level of complacency slipped in,” he says. “When you double your market share, you think you are very good. Maybe we forgot a little about the customer. It took Kuga to make us realise that although we believe we are customer-centric, it may not be as deep as we think.”
Kruger wants to improve the relationship with its dealer network. “Sometimes they have a problem dealing with someone from outside. Me being South African, we don’t have to get used to each other. I speak their language, literally and figuratively.”