The pandemic has definitely changed consumer behavior. Now that many people are stuck at home and are forced to embrace digital technology, people have significantly shorter attention span and much shorter patience. Instant gratification is now a norm and people expect the goods and services they have ordered to be delivered in the shortest possible time.
The same is true with the automotive industry, with truck body building in particular.
“Centro Manufacturing Corporation has risen to the call by developing special systems that enable us to deliver our products faster than industry standard while not sacrificing quality. By fine tuning our manufacturing process and strengthening our supply chain, we were able to drastically cut our delivery commitment time”, says Vic Belisario, Centro Senior Sales Manager.
“It all started with our brand new wing vans, the product of our partnership with Nippon Fruehauf of Japan”, he says. “It is now the leading brand new wing van brand in the country. And this is because by using Japanese technology, we are now able to assemble, install and deliver a brand new wing van body on retail basis in just five working days. But of course, for fleet or volume orders, a delivery timeline will be prepared with the first batch delivered after five working days”.
Belisario explains that five working days compared to the usual one month importation and fabrication of wing vans means three extra weeks of earlier profitability for the logistics provider. “They make money sooner with less waiting time so everybody is happy”.
Learning from the experience, Centro has embarked on a Body Ready Program and added its premium CVan aluminum vans to its list of quick-delivered products. “It now takes only seven working days to produce and deliver on a retail basis our standard 10 footer CVans to our customers. And once this was known in the market, customers started ordering. One customer from Apalit, Pampanga was very thankful he got his utility vehicle and aluminum van early and started earning on them immediately”, he says.
“And now, the latest quick-delivered product of Centro is the Japan-quality Cooltech ref van. Now that its high-tech extruded polystyrene sandwich panels are being locally produced at the new Centro Nippon Fruehauf Cooltech Inc. factory in Cavite, we can customize ref vans based on the body size, truck brand and model and ref system preferred by the customer. Using the Body Ready Program, we can produce, assemble and deliver on a retail basis our ref vans, all within seven working days”, Belisario concludes.
So with everything now available with a tap on a smartphone, Centro is responding by producing and delivering its products faster so that customers can use the products earlier and recoup their investment faster. Speed to market. That is the name of the game in the new normal.