Relationships between carmakers and resellers: Evolutions, goals and perspectives

Abstract

The authors depict the situation in the automobile industry following the new European directives on the management of distribution. They first describe the situation of the relationships when carmakers had a total control of their network before the introduction of the new directives in October 2003. Secondly, they review the main points of the directives and draw first conclusions on the risks that carmakers can bear under a possible shift of power. Finally, the authors suggest two behaviors that carmakers can adopt: the complete review of their distribution network where carmakers implement a lean distribution and a stable partnership, or the reproduction of past strategies with a politic of dissuasion towards distributors.