By VJ Bacungan
Multi-brand automotive distributor Inchcape has made serious waves since it entered the Philippine market on January 2023.
The company, through a joint venture with the CATS Group of Companies, now controls the distribution of major luxury brands like Mercedes-Benz, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and RAM. Inchcape Philippines also made headlines in August last year when it took over the local operations of Chinese carmaker Changan Auto.
But the company hasn’t stopped there – it is constructing a multi-brand parts, service and training facility in Pasig City. The compound is already home to Mazda C-5 Pasig, which was officially opened on August 2023, and the upcoming flagship dealership of Changan Auto Philippines.
State-of-the-art
Inquirer Motoring was one of the few media outlets to be invited to the facility on Thursday for a luncheon and tour with Inchcape South Asia & Pacific managing director Alex Hammett and Inchcape Philippines COO Frankie Ang.
The 11,577 square-meter compound includes a state-of-the-art body and paint shop, as well as a 900-square-meter parts warehouse and a training center with an in-house “hotel” for 60 personnel.
Although we weren’t allowed to take photos of the immaculately clean body and paint shop, we were shown some seriously high-grade gear that can repair anything from a scratched Changan to a crashed Jaguar. Inchcape Philippines, as of press time, is also the only company with a certified aluminum repair facility.
Meanwhile, the expansive warehouse space will integrate innovations like automation to ensure efficient and timely pick-up and sorting of parts.
“What we’re looking to do is get scale-efficient operations,” Hammett told Inquirer Motoring in an exclusive interview.
“This site is going to be really key for us,” he added. “It has a lot of visibility, foot traffic, but the infrastructure of this property is already here. So for us, it just made really good commercial sense to build efficient scale operations.”
‘A year of after-sales’
Hammett also told Inquirer Motoring that the push to invest in the C-5 facility is down to Inchcape’s strategy of developing quality service first, calling 2024, “a year of after-sales.”
“You can’t sell cars without the backbone of after-sales,” he said. “What we’re looking to do is to make sure that we have the appropriate health and safety expertise across our operations to ensure that our employees can go home safe. We’re looking to diversify revenue streams and offer good products and after-sales.”
Hammett added that the company wants to ensure minimal downtime, especially for parts.
“Ultimately, we’re looking to add value to our customers by ensuring that they can get an appointment easily and we can keep the cars on the road,” he said.
Besides the new facility, Hammett said they “brought back home” Larry De Guzman, who has worked in Inchcape’s other markets abroad, to handle all local after-sales operations. He added that Inchcape is also developing its facilities in Greenhills that are situated on another major thoroughfare – EDSA.
“We’ve restructured a lot the management teams to be able to get synergies out of the operations,” he said.
However, Hammett noted that the company will also invest in other key areas within and outside of Metro Manila as the business grows.
