The shifting landscape of the heavy-duty aftermarket will be the focus of the second educational session at Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week (HDAW) 2017.
In a presentation titled, ‘Shift Happens! How to Win at Business Model Warfare,’ Rick Funston of Funston Advisory Services will examine key shifts witnessed in the heavy-duty aftermarket in recent years, how those changes mirror alterations found in other distribution businesses, and how the independent aftermarket distributors can learn from responses of other industries in withstanding the aftermarket’s changing business landscape.
“Shifts are happening in every industry, and certainly in the heavy-duty aftermarket, and the core of my presentation will be looking at how business leaders can adapt their business models to take advantage of those shifts,” Funston says. “I want [HDAW attendees] to look at an industry paradigm and turn it on its head.”
Funston describes that concept as asymmetrical warfare, or the idea of looking at what everyone in an industry is doing (symmetrical warfare) and intentionally doing the inverse or the opposite. He says the concept was perfected by Apple and Steve Jobs.
“Jobs knew he had to do things differently because he couldn’t compete” doing things the same ways as Microsoft and IBM, Funston says.
Funston says his presentation will be anchored by a survey of heavy-duty distributors he performed earlier this year. Funston will address the biggest challenges distributors claimed to be facing in their businesses, and offer asymmetrical and alternative solutions from other industries that could be equally valuable in the aftermarket.
He specifically mentions a fixation on price as one area where the aftermarket could stand to, like Jobs, “think differently.” Funston says focusing on “creating value so what you do will not be commoditized,” offers distributors a much stronger path toward long-term success.
Funston acknowledges that some of his suggestions for distributors may seem unique or difficult to implement, but that ultimately such efforts are commonly required to create solutions that will change an industry or business.
He says the status quo is an endangered business practice. Future success requires evolution.
“Most exceptional leaders can see that the industry is changing,” he says. “I believe an exceptional leader will be able to take [my] message and run with it.”
Prior to his career as a speaker and consultant Funston spent many years at Deloitte & Touche, LLP, and at one point served as the National Practice leader for Deloitte’s Governance and Risk Oversight Service. In that capacity, he served many of Deloitte’s largest domestic and global clients and was responsible for the thought leadership that currently underpins Deloitte’s global pre-eminent position in risk intelligence.
He is the author of “Surviving and Thriving in Uncertainty: Creating The Risk Intelligent Enterprise.”
His HDAW presentation is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. PT on Tuesday, Jan. 24, 2017. To view a complete schedule of HDAW events, please CLICK HERE.
This article is the second in a series previewing the presenters at next month’s Heavy Duty Aftermarket Week (HDAW) 2017.
