(Yicai Global) May 7 -- Ford China announced yesterday that Lu Yi, a former senior executive at Audi, has joined the company as president of its national distribution services division. Lu is the division’s fourth head since it was set up in 2018.

Ford China also said that Yang Song, whom Lu replaces at the NDSD, will become deputy general manager of the automaker’s passenger car division.

Yicai Global learned that Yang had been in the post for two years and was the longest-serving of the NDSD’s three former presidents.

Ford China President Chen An’ning was chairman of the joint venture between Jaguar Land Rover and China’s Chery Automobile during Lu’s tenure as president of JLR’s joint marketing division in China, Yicai Global learned. Lu was previously also a senior executive at auto giants Jaguar Land Rover, BMW, and Infinity.

The NDSD is a countrywide sales division established by Ford Motor in 2018 to uniformly improve the US carmaker’s brand image and service experience in China, and get closer to distributors and the local market. Prior to the division’s set up, Ford’s two JV production companies and three distribution channels for imported cars were in charge of sales in China.

“Yang faced a number of challenges, including the Covid-19 pandemic and industry-wide chip shortage, during his two-year tenure as president,” an insider told Yical Global.

“But even so, Changan Ford Auto, a passenger car venture of Ford Motor and Changan Auto, had continuous sales growth, with a significant improvement in the quality of operations at both car-manufacturing plants and dealers,” the source said.

Performance Boost

Yang became NDSD head in April 2019, following three consecutive years of falling sales at Changan Ford Auto. He changed the JV’s sales management methods and pushed dealers to be more active in improving their performances, which paid off.

Yang’s very first act as NDSD president was to help distributors ‘minimize their losses,’ many Changan Ford resellers told Yicai Global.

“In 2018, our store’s capital chain was broken, with quality certificates being regulated,” noted one dealer in Shanghai. “Staff were constantly leaving and we had an inventory of over 200 cars and lost a total of CNY4 million (USD620,000) by the end of 2018.”

The dealer added that most of the JV’s distributors in Shanghai had returned to profitability by last year, with the best profit gainer earning CNY9 million.

Changan Ford Auto ended three years of falling sales last year, with a 16.7 percent year-on-year increase to 213,700 vehicles, excluding Lincoln models made in China.

The JV turned around its deficit in 2020, achieving net profit of CNY15.8 million (USD2.4 million).

Editors: Tang Shihua, Peter Thomas