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33 AutoData | April 2018 Full package During the crisis, a trend that was already emerging in the truck sector was strengthened: the sale of packages added to the vehicles, whether scheduled maintenance, telemetry or other technologies that help the day-to-day operation of the fleet owners. Previously timid, sales figures for 0 KM models with these packages currently outnumber the two-digit house in most automakers. “From the basic package to the most elaborate 80% of our sales come out with some after-sale plan”, says Bernado Fedalto, of Volvo. “In this resumption we started to sell the full package. The trend is that 100% of our sales will have some added package.” Oswaldo Ramos, of Ford, says that plans have gained ground in recent years. “The operators are outsourcing the workshop to the factory. They eliminate cost, risk and can predict how much they will spend on maintenance”, he explains. He says the percentage of new models sales with the Ford Service, maintenance package offered to the brand’s trucks, has doubled from 2016 to 2018. “This tendency for us is already a reality”, says Roberto Barral of Scania. The company invested heavily in after-sales, connectivity and flexible maintenance plans. The investment extended to the network: “It was all standardized. The customer now saves 70% of the time when scheduling services at the dealership.” Luis Gambim, from DAF, explains that the company’s culture plans to make the concessionaire a major service center - so much so that it offers its network of spare parts for multibrands in its network. “The customer can take their entire fleet out of warranty, from DAF trucks or other brands, to do maintenance at one of our dealerships.” Mercedes-Benz bets on Fleetboard, a fleet management system. All of the Axor, Atego and Actros trucks come with it installed and the new owners gain a year of free testing. “In total there are over 5.6 thousand vehicles with Fleetboard activated in Brazil. Only in January to February about six hundred vehicles activated the system”, says Roberto Leoncini, who also sees growth in sales of maintenance packages: “More customers are asking us to take over their shop”. At MAN, scheduled maintenance packages already account for 20 to 30% of sales. The brand also bets on operating leasing - very common in Europe, but still crawling around here. José Ricardo Alouche says that his clients value the profit of every penny. “Many people tell me ‘I need to win even in the second house after the comma’. If you do not take care of yourself, the fleet owner will break.” are ambitious. “We are preparing to be the major DAF exporter in the region.” Meanwhile, the company concentrates its efforts on the Brazilian market. But what is the size of this market? Does it return to the 100 thousand house? When? Ramos, of Ford, believes that at the beginning of the next decade. “Maybe those peaks of the anticipation of purchases of the Euro 5 do not repeat themselves. But I think our market has a size of 100 thousand to 120 thousand trucks a year.” The MAN executive is more optimistic: “We think that the 150 thousand trucks a year will be repeated, it was not a bubble. The Brazilianmarket is bigger than this, just comparewith the United States, China and other countries. Combining some factors such as infrastructure investment, we can sell up to 200 thousand trucks in a year”, Alouche believes. As it can be seen, the pessimism in this extremely important truck market is finally diminishing and becoming, at the beginning of this year, a tiny dot in the re- arview mirror.