PERSONALITY
THE
REAL DEAL Velocity Vehicle Group is one of North America’s largest Daimler Trucks dealership networks with more than 50 dealer locations. It’s local mission is to bring Speed, Value and Trust for all of its Australian customers.
I
t was major news late last year when word spread that Velocity Vehicle Group was planning to take over all 15 Daimler Truck and Bus dealerships formerly operated by the Eagers Automotive Group. With the deal formerly completed in May, Prime Mover sat down with Velocity’s Executive Vice President Richard Higgins and Senior Vice President Dan Stevens to discuss how such a major investment will help it deliver world-class service to the Australian truck market. PM: Was it an approach from Australia or an approach from Daimler Trucks North America for this relationship to develop or did the circumstances all just come together anyway? DS: The short version is I was a truck dealer in the States and Velocity Vehicle Group Co-President Brad Fauvre and I served together for many years on the Dealer Council and as chairmen at different times. I sold out my interest in the business which was the Lone Star Truck Group and Tag Truck Centres which were Freightliner and Western Star dealerships. I knew Greg Lovrich at Daimler Truck and Bus in Melbourne because he would bring Australian dealers over to the States and we would tour facilities, so Greg asked me to come to Australia in a consultancy role which I did in 2019 and 2020 until COVID ran us out. It looked like the truck part of the Eagers business wasn’t the most attractive to them and so we talked with Brad Fauvre and one thing led to another. 56
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Richard Higgins and Dan Stevens at this year’s Brisbane Truck Show.
PM: Is the overall plan as straightforward as replicating the US business model in Australia? RH: The challenge for us is to look at what works well in the US, what works well in Australia and figuring out the right combination. It’s by no means a case of simply employing everything as they do in the US. In my experience with Velocity, they are relentlessly focused on the customer experience, and are very transparent internally about performance against the sort of metrics customers care about. The business we bought (Eagers’ truck and bus dealerships) is not a bad business
and there’s lots of good stuff there along with lots of great people. We’ve got a different brand portfolio here, the geography’s a bit different, and so is the customer base. So there are lots of things we need to work through before we make any radical changes. PM: How important is the relationship between OEM and dealer? DS: Ten or 12 years ago in the US we got the Freightliner Cascadia and we got a jump in market share, not unlike the Mercedes-Benz product out here. We had a better product which meant we sold more trucks. But some customers
