tiresandparts.net9The other factor that sets the Middle East region apart is the conditions. The heat is very harsh and if tires are not formulated and stored correctly they can deteriorate rapidly, becoming slippery and dangerous, even perishing or delaminating in some cases. All Davanti tires are designed to meet GCC criteria and are certified for sale so you can be sure that your Davanti tires will perform as well in Dubai as they do in Dublin!Standards in the Middle East are very strict in terms of date of manufacture and tire labelling standards. How does Davanti tackle these requirements?We are fully committed to these standards as they come down to one thing - driver safety. As a tire manufacturer we realize that first and foremost we are making safety devices. We are making devices designed to keep you on the road and to stop you safely when required. As I referred to earlier, the harsh conditions in the Middle East require that your standards on this are stricter than most but the result is safer roads for all. We constantly keep ourselves updated on the advice and requirements of the GCC for tire manufacture, storage, age and labelling in order to ensure our tyres can perform to the optimum level whenever they are purchased.Davanti has entered into a three-year partnership with leading football club, Everton. Are you planning to enter into any such marketing partnerships in the Middle East market?We are always happy to have conversations with potential partners, but at the moment we have not received any approaches from any potential Middle East partners.In 2017, Davanti Tyres received the TÜV SÜD accreditation for its DX390 high performance car tire. Has Davanti received any other similar accreditations?The DX390 has also been certified by IFV for it’s longevity.Recently, Hungarian automotive website Autonavigator.hu ranked Davanti’s DX390 car tire fifth in its Summer 2019 tire test. How does Davanti ensure tire quality as most of the company’s tires are produced through contract manufacturing? We work very closely with our manufacturing partners to ensure quality is maintained consistently. Remember, we contract the manufacture of these tyres, they have been designed, engineered and formulated by our research and development team. We meet with our partners regularly, face-to-face, to discuss quality and consistency and to ensure that the highest standards are maintained. The fact that we performed so well in that test shows that our quality controls work.As a relatively new brand, how important is participating in trade shows? What are the major trade shows in which Davanti participates? We participate in a number of domestic and international trade shows including Automechanika Dubai, Autopromotec and Latin American and Caribbean Tyre Expo.What support do you extend to your distributors in terms of training and education?We offer full sales training, and branding support to our partners, helping bring their sales teams up to speed on our product range and the benefits and delivering professional branding to help them represent Davanti well. Where regulations change and we need to update them, we will send teams out to deliver workshops.Based on your experience in this market, how important is customer service and what measures have you taken to improve customer service?Customer service is king and as we have grown we have developed our capabilities there, both in a B2B and B2C way.B2B we have a UK-based telesales team to handle business there, but that has generated a best practice which we can use to support our distributors globally.For consumers, the internet and social media is becoming the primary source of customer service enquiries. We have a team managing our channels on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Linkedin and Youtube ready to respond to any customer queries. It is an aspect of the business that we are always working to improve as we grow.Can you tell us more about a few marketing initiatives that you have carried out in recent years to increase sales in the short-term and long-term?Our partnership with Everton has been very helpful in raising our profile and supporting our sales objectives, never more so than during two campaigns we ran with them using top footballers like Jordan Pickford and Theo Walcott in video content to engage with social media.With Jordan Pickford, we surprised a fan who had raised a lot of money for charity, while Theo was pitted against Andre Gomes, Cenk Tosun and members of Everton Ladies FC in a model truck race. Both campaigns increased our brand awareness significantly. The challenge is that tires are a distress purchase, so influencing sales in the short-term is almost impossible. Building brand awareness to support dealers when they open conversations about Davanti is the key to growth.What are the kind of tires that you will be focusing on in the Middle East market?All our tires are GCC certified and we are able to respond to demand. We expect a greater appetite for Terratoura and the DX640 but in all honesty, if we saw another model in our range begin to spike in demand, we would respond accordingly.What are the future plans for the Davanti brand, both in the Middle East and globally?We are currently working on the development of a new ultra-high performance tire, Protoura Sport, which we unveiled at Automechanika Dubai. There is still some work to do in terms of testing to get the performance characteristics right but that will be our next major launch and we expect it to be well received in the Middle East.If you could sum up Davanti Tyres in just one sentence for our readers, what would that be?Davanti Tyres is Leading the Way.
< Page 8 | Page 10 >