Marketing Strategies
The OEM sales department within each of the three product divisions worked with the OEM's engineers to develop innovative and cost-effective new parts to meet the customers' requirements and serviced customer accounts for parts already being supplied to the OEMs. Each of these OEM sales departments was expected to meet an annual sales revenue target. Because the product divisions'customers (OEMs) were different from the AM divisions'customers,top management did not feel that the OEM and aftermarket sales organizations should be combined. Even the three product divisions'OEM marketing efforts were not consolidated in one sales organization because each division's OEM marketers tended to work with different people within a given OEM's oragnization (i.e.,ignition, transmission, and engines). Moreover, two of the three product divisions were independent companies before being acquired by Abrams. Thus,there was a long tradition of doing their own OEM marketing.
According to Abrams' executives, the factors critical to success in the OEM market were: the ability to design innovative and dependable parts that met the customer's quality, performance, and weight specifications; meeting delivery schedule requirements so that the OEM could minimize its own parts inventories; and controlling costs. cost control was important because the market was very price competitive. In the aftermarket business, availability of parts was by far the most important factor to the wholesaler, followed by quality and price