7:28 am, June 8, 2023
Fiat has revealed the number of dealers losing its franchise as part of wider Stellantis network cuts – but has insisted the axe has fallen on those who have ‘underperformed’.
By the end of June, Fiat’s UK dealer network will have been cut by 20 per cent from 125 dealers to 100 – one month later than planned.
And the closures represent a ‘significant’ proportion of parent company Stellantis’s plans to axe showrooms across the country.
In October 2022, global powerhouse Stellantis revealed to Car Dealer that 138 dealers would get the chop as part of drastic plans to streamline its business.
Along with wielding the axe on underperforming dealers, the company shuffled its management team, with execs including Alfa Romeo and Jeep UK MD Damien Dally moving to Fiat, Fiat Professional and Abarth.
Six months into the new role, Dally has given Car Dealer an exclusive low-down on his plans for the Italian brands, and the decision to part ways with some retailers.
‘When I came in, it was two weeks of crashing learning on Fiat, and what really, really struck me was the dispersion of dealers,’ said Dally in our video interview, which you can watch at the top of this story.
‘We have a contingent of really good and committed dealers; our two top quartiles of the network are scoring 99 per cent against a target of 95 per cent for customer satisfaction – they are absolutely hitting it out of the park and doing a home run at the same time.
‘But then we had the bottom quartile who didn’t even swing at the ball, really.’
When asked if the dealer terminations had begun and how many of the cuts were Fiat dealers, Dally said: ‘It’s imminent and you will see it very shortly.
‘It’s been a two-year process, which would have taken us to the end of May 2023, but due to the nature of the quarter we extended the contracts by four weeks.
‘You are going to see a significant number [lose their Fiat franchise]. “Significant number” means that we’re going to go down from about 125 dealers to about 100.
‘There will probably be some people that will say “I’m surprised about this”, but it is part of a bigger strategy. On our part, it’s not something that just happened by accident.’
Dally added: ‘The truth of the matter is I cannot allow the amazing performance of 50 per cent of the network to be impacted by some that are just not playing.’
With the management reshuffle, Dally – a self-confessed Alfa Romeo fanatic, or ‘Alfisti’, who joined the company 21 years ago – effectively left his role as boss of Alfa Romeo and Jeep on New Year’s Eve 2022 and was heading up Fiat the next day.
Within a couple of weeks, he was addressing the brand’s dealer network at Stellantis’s investor conference held at Birmingham’s NEC, and outlined the company’s strategy in moving forwards with its best-performing dealers, its future models and a general motivational plea to get behind Fiat’s ‘rebirth’.
‘The message was really clear – we are investing in this brand and perhaps there wasn’t that investment in the past.
‘But they had to knuckle down, they had to invest – the inference [to be made] was there’s space on the boat for everybody and they needed to act and act now.’
Going electric
Fiat’s range will be bolstered by a new 600 pure-electric SUV due to be revealed later this year, while Dally hinted that the firm will dive into its back catalogue of famous model names for future products.
But before then, his major focus is on Fiat’s current line-up of 500 Hybrid, electric 500e, and Fiat Professional’s van offering, and the imminent launch of the electric Abarth 500e.
He revealed that sales of the ageing, but still hugely popular, 500 Hybrid were up by 50 per cent in quarter one and it is still the brand’s volume model, but he wants to supercharge sales of Fiat’s electric 500e models.
The company launched its ‘E-Grant’ last week, which knocks £3,000 off the price of a 500e or 500e Convertible, and it comes one year after the government axed its Plug-in Car Grant which gave car buyers a £1,500 discount on the price of a new EV.
It also wrote a letter to ministers outlining its plan for the incentive scheme.
‘We’re not necessarily saying [to the government] reinstate the grant as it was, but what we’re saying is that the journey to 2030 is starting to slow, it’s starting to prove tricky, and things need done,’ he said.
‘Two things need to be done: one is you need to give consumers a reason to buy now, and two is we need to make it a bit easier for them.’
Dally added the dealer network was ‘very, very positive’ about the incentive scheme ‘and getting behind it’.
Elsewhere in the interview, Dally talks more about the new Abarth 500e, new car supply and the need to have physical dealer showrooms. You can watch it at the top of this story.
