Bridgestone Retail shooting for 3,000-plus outlets

GENEVA, Ill. (June 23, 2016) — Bridgestone Americas is looking to add 800 or more retail points of sale to 2,200-plus company-owned retail stores it currently operates as it drives to “become the most trusted provider of automotive care in every neighborhood we serve.”

To that end, Bridgestone plans to open a net of 45 new retail locations — under its Firestone Complete Auto Care, Tires Plus and/or Wheel Works brands — per year over the coming several years, according to Stu Crum, president, Bridgestone Retail Operations.

To reach 3,000-plus retail stores, however, the company will have to add stores via acquisition, he added, noting Bridgestone has several non-disclosure acquisition agreements already in place and expects to announce some deals before year-end. Depending on the deals, the store network could reach as many as 3,500 stores.

This strategy, known internally as Vision 2020, originally included purchasing Pep Boys – Manny, Moe & Jack, but Bridgestone backed away from that deal late last year after the bidding with rival Icahn Enterprises L.P. reached and exceeded $1 billion, Mr. Crum said in a presentation to trade and industry media in Geneva.

Prior to putting in its initial bid last October for Pep Boys, Bridgestone had established a budget of about $800 million to effect the growth strategy that had been laid out.

At that time, Pep Boys operated more than 800 retail locations with 7,500-plus service bays in 35 states and Puerto Rico, generating annual sales of more than $2 billion.

By comparison, Bridgestone Retail is a $4 billion a year business unit of Bridgestone Americas.

That budget is still in place, Mr. Crum said, and will be used to build new stores, carry out acquisitions and renovate existing stores.

Mr. Crum and others on the BSRO team declined to discuss possible acquisition targets or be more specific about where the company intends to concentrate its new store openings. BSRO also is budgeting about $135,000 per store to “refresh” older stores, some of which haven't been updated for 20 or more years. The company closes about 15 locations a year for various reasons.

Mr. Crum did say the company would have retail stores in all 50 states, up from 48 currently.

From Bridgestone Retail's point of view, though, bricks-and-mortar growth is just one element of the Vision 2020 strategy, Mr. Crum noted in his presentation.

Parallel to expanding the business' physical assets, Bridgestone Retail is equally hard at work changing its approach to the customer experience and the way the business' personnel interact with customers — or “bosses” as the Bridgestone Retail team refers to customers.

Noting that 90 percent of Bridgestone Retail's customers are responsible for 42 percent of the network's revenue and 47 percent of profits, Mr. Crum stressed that the business has to develop ways to attract new clientele — and then retain them.

The company has identified five “must-win” battles along this path, Mr. Crum said: increase customer loyalty; build winning markets; harness the power of complete auto care; drive strategic B2B growth; and establish a high-performance, customer-centric culture.

In more concrete terms, Bridgestone Retail is reviewing the way it does business from top to bottom in order to move away from “transactional” customer-based business — the one-time customer seen purely as a revenue generator — to creating an environment where customers are comfortable returning to a Bridgestone Retail store for all of his or her automotive maintenance needs, according to Jeffrey Lack, vice president, marketing and promotions.

To explore ways to achieve this, the business unit has established a “lab store” concept, where new ways of customer interaction and auto service processes are being trialed, evaluated and benchmarked.

Bridgestone Retail has set up seven lab stores throughout the country — in St. Charles and Woodfield, Ill.; Alpharetta and Suwanee, Ga.; Eden Prairie and Maplewood, Minn.; and Antioch, Tenn. — where it is test-marketing a variety of approaches to customer relations, service bay procedures, etc.

Some of the concepts being trialed include:

• concierge service — designated concierges greet customers before they enter the store with the intent of ascertaining their reasons for visiting and thus speeding up the process. Concierges eventually will initiate this conversation using hand-held tablets;

• store within store — Bridgestone Retail partners, such as Interstate Batteries, Pennzoil/Shell lubricants, etc., set up branded areas within the retail store to help educate consumers on car repair and promote their brands;

• stand-alone transaction pods that provide more transparency for the customer in completing his or her business;

• Shield Shops — a wall or corner of the customer area where Bridgestone can display and sell Firestone-branded apparel or merchandise, Bridgestone golf balls and gear and/or impulse-buy items from Bridgestone Retail partners (such as Interstate Batteries, Rain-X wipers, QMI automotive lubricants, etc.);

• Circular customer waiting areas in the middle of the store, putting the “boss” where he should be — in the center.

In the service area, Bridgestone Retail is attempting to apply the principles behind lean manufacturing to the auto service experience, according to George Kingman, Lab Stores area manager for the greater Chicago area, during a tour of the St. Charles store.

Among the changes being trialed is offering a free multi-point vehicle inspection to all customers, regardless of the nature of the visit.

This digital inspection platform process includes an alignment and tire check using a laser-based drive over inspection system, tire pressure check, TPMS battery-life check, car battery check, fluid level check, interior vacuuming and floor mat cleaning, Mr. Kingman said.

The goal is to “choreograph” the process to keep the inspection process to as little as two to three minutes, in order to be able to offer an oil change, for example, in under 15 minutes. Bridgestone is working to integrate the process with the Bosch Flex Inspect system in order to capture and store all the data digitally; eventually each customer's visits will be available to any Bridgestone Retail store, should that customer visit another store.