Page 17 - CTB n4 - 2013/4

AL DOBOWI FEATURE
Al Dobowi Increases Influence in UK with Multi-Brand Approach
Al Dobowi is a name with which truck and bus fleet managers in the UK may not be immediately familiar. However, the Dubai based group is a significant international player in the tyre distribution sector with rapidly growing influence on the UK market thanks to a triumvirate of brands, over which the company has sole distribution rights. In addition to the Group’s private brand Infinity, Al Dobowi is the European distributor for
Westlake as well as the UK distributor for Linglong truck and bus radials. With a fourth brand, Eternity, set for launch next year, Al Dobowi’s profile in the UK, already growing thanks to the Infinity brand’s recent victory in the advertising campaign category of the NTDA TAFF Awards, is set to become even more significant.
For Al Dobowi Group Executive Director Harjeev S Kandhari, the key to the Group’s presence in the UK is the ability to provide a comprehensive tyre testing and fleet management service to UK fleets through the company’s UK distribution partners.
“We want to grow in the truck market,” explains Kandhari, “but we want to grow in
the right way. We are
not interested in simply moving containers of tyres. We want to service our fleet customers. When the directors of Zhongce Rubber, producers of the Westlake brand, already the third biggest truck tyre manufacturer in the world, tell us they strive to become the world’s number one, they are talking about being number one by volume. However, we’d like to help them become number one by value, which means increasing the value of our brands through our service support packages.” Al Dobowi, in fact, already have significant tyre testing facilities available to them. As
a major distributor in the Middle East and the region’s leading retreader (Al Dobowi runs a network of Bandag retreading plants across the UAE and other Middle Eastern countries) the company is able to test all the tyres it sells as well as run fleet tests in the region.
The same is the case in Europe where the company combines with local distribution partners to carr y out fleet monitoring to measure the performance of its tyres.
A case in point is Vacu-Lug, who are the Group’s appointed UK distributor for the Westlake brand. According to Kandhari, Al Dobowi chose Vacu-Lug as their partner in the UK partly because, like Al Dobowi, they are a retreader and understand the concept of selling the full life value of the tyre, but also because they are a fleet management company.
Says Kandhari; “Vacu-Lug carry out a wide range of test programmes with the Westlake brand including with a number of major fleets like United Biscuits. As a result of our focus on the importance of creating a testing culture, this is now being
passed through to the van sector as well. We are now proposing tests with some of the UK’s largest van fleets.”
Al Dobowi’s approach to the market is the same with the company’s other brands. East London based tyre distributor and Bandag retreader G&S Tyres were recently appointed a distributor for the Linglong brand, also due to the company’s status as a retreader with the ability to provide a full fleet service backup.
Meanwhile, having built up a strong brand profile in the car tyre sector thanks to the efforts of UK distributor Bond International, the Infinity brand is now also gaining ground in the truck tyre market, having recently been approved by the Euromaster Group.
With Al Dobowi being responsible for the UK marketing of three of the most prominent Chinese manufactured tyre brands our interview with Harjeev K andhari would not have been complete without touching on the continuing development and progress of the Chinese tyre industry. In a recent press interview on this subject,
K andhari spoke about a generational change in the tyre industr y, with significant shifts as the leading Chinese manufacturers emerge as major global players. Drawing a parallel to the growth of the Japanese tyre brands in the 60s and 70s and the Koreans twenty years ago he describes the growth of the Chinese as “an exciting change that can only help to deliver better choice, better quality and more buying power...”
On the subject of Al Dobowi’s own brand, Infinity, Harjeev
K andhari talks about “a phenomenal product”, which has been designed with a view to quality rather than price.
“It means, of course, that we have a tyre, which is not recession proof but it is a significant move away from the popular idea of ‘cheap and Chinese’. Infinity is a quality product that just happens to be made in China.”
Harjeev Kandhari