PERSONALITY
P R E P A R AT I O N
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NEXT LIFE Bill Gillespie is General Manager of Brand and Franchise Development at Hino Trucks, a role that helps provide him with a special insight into the current truck market. Damien Scully and Bill Gillespie at truck handover event in 2019.
With over 30 years experience in the automotive industry, Bill Gillespie has held executive positions at Toyota, Nissan, Peugeot and Kia and been involved in motorsport both on and off the track. He joined Hino in 2014 and brings an acute understanding of the customer buying experience as the General Manager of Brand and Franchise Development. Here he offers thoughts on the unique set of challenges affecting the market in these uncommon times. PM: You’re at the forefront of managing the Hino organisation’s challenges as Australia begins to emerge from the shutdown brought about by COVID-19. How is the impact of the global pandemic affecting the local Hino operation? BG: Our parts warehouse is still operating so we can continue to offer full parts support to our dealers and our customers. We are still air freighting urgent items in from Japan but there is less air freight due to less planes actually flying. Elsewhere, it’s pretty much business as usual. Obviously we can’t go and see the dealers or our customers face to face but we are doing a lot of contact electronically. Business in that sense is working pretty well, except for lack of personal contact. PM: How are Hino’s stock levels? BG: Parts levels are good and vehicle levels are OK. We’ve got to be very careful because trying to forecast the truck market at the moment is a little difficult and we’ve probably got visibility through until the end of June. After that, if business slows then the market may have an uncertain July, August and September
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