Bigland takes responsibility for Alfa brand in U.S. and drops Ram

[XDCX]

I can't say I was too surprised to read last week that Reid Bigland will assume responsibility for the Alfa Romeo brand in North America. Bigland will retain his current responsibility as the head of the U.S. Sales Division and CEO of Chrysler Canada.

Bigland will drop his responsibility for the Ram brand - that job will be assumed by Rob Hedgebloom.

In my eyes the distinction between the Fiat brands in the U.S. and the Chrysler brands is continuing to fade. I still maintain that the creation of a separate Fiat franchise was a mistake and it's one of the main reasons the Fiat 500 has mostly failed in the U.S.

Concerning Alfa, maybe I'm a skeptic but I think the brand is going to have a hard time gaining traction in the U.S. There will not be a volume of vehicles for the Alfa brand until 2016 and the segment Alfa hopes to compete in is loaded with great OEMs that build awesome vehicles. As always, time will tell....

[jayhawk]

for reids sake, alfa must be a home run.

[XDCX]

Originally Posted by jayhawk

for reids sake, alfa must be a home run.

To Bigland's credit, he has a solid track record of success. He did a great job with Chrysler Canada and his sales success since he took over the U.S. Sales Division speaks for itself.

In my eyes I think it's somewhat ironic that the success Bigland created was largely due to the fact he scrapped Marchionne's Play Book and went back to the "old school Chrysler" way of selling cars - big rebates, price advertising and dealer stair-step incentives.

During Chrysler's "hibernation" days Marchionne often opined that incentives were a sign of weakness and OEMs shouldn't rely on profits derived from in-house finance companies.

Back to Alfa, if I were Bigland I'd be trying to lower expectations and define "success" using some variable other than just unit sales.