CEO INTERVIEW - McClure of ArvinMeritor: A Bridge to Asia

CHARLES (CHIP) MCCLURE HAS SPENT his entire professional career in and around the Detroit automotive industry, having joined Ford Motor Co. as an engineer straight out of the U.S. Navy in 1979. But for the past three years, as CEO of ArvinMeritor, a $9.2 billion-in-revenues auto-parts maker, he has been distancing himself and his company from Detroit, as the Big Three U.S. automakers reel from declining sales and high labor costs.

As part of an ongoing restructuring plan, McClure, 53, sold Arvin's emissions technology business in May, a move that cut its dealings substantially with the Big Three. Before the divestiture, the company derived 15 percent of its North American light-vehicle systems sales from General Motors Corp., Ford and Chrysler. That figure now stands at 8.5 percent. One big goal of McClure's restructuring -- which aims to trim $150 million from annual costs within two years by closing 13 plants, among other cuts -- is to further reduce Arvin's dependence on the U.S. by boosting revenues in the fast-growing Asian market. In July, Arvin formed a joint venture with Shanghai's Chery Automobile Co. to design and manufacture chassis systems, a deal that should help it supply customers more cheaply.

根据McClure，Arvin避免了达娜公司，Delphi Corp.和Collins＆Aikman Corp.等竞争对手所访问的大部分痛苦，近年来破产了底特律的财富。当McClure成功退休的首席执行官拉里·马斯托斯于2004年8月退休时，由于2007年和2009年成熟，该公司有983亿美元的债务。警惕的一个周期性下滑，McClure指导CFO James Donlon来改善并偿还大部分义务。长期债务下降至9300万美元，直到2015年才开始成熟。同时，两年前的养老金计划欠559百万美元，现已接近95％的资金，短缺1.65亿美元。

尽管如此，工作仍有待完成。特洛伊，密歇根巴西·阿尔文在6月30日止终止的季度亏损，并在其年度的盈利指导下，引用了与重组相关的费用。和McClure，通过他在首席执行官Lobbying集团的成员圆桌会议和全国制造商协会协会董事会的座位，正在推动美国医疗改革。医疗费用是美国汽车和自动零部件制造商最大的竞争劣势之一。

McClure是从康奈尔大学和密歇根大学的MBA获得机械工程学士学位，最近与机构投资者助理管理编辑Justin Schack聊天。亚博赞助欧冠

您对GM，Ford和Chrysler的长期前景是什么？

The challenge is really here in North America, where they've seen some shifts in market share. Ford and GM are actually doing okay in Europe, and in China, GM is doing great. So the industry is still vibrant, but the days of having just the Big Three in North America are over. I think in the future we're going to have something more like the European market, where there are six to eight players and nobody with a dominant share.

How are their challenges affecting your business?

在轻型车辆业务中，我们的曝光远远不如我们习惯的那么大，所以影响很小。他们仍然是重要的客户。我们没有放弃它们。但我们的一部分战略是限制我们在他们挑战的市场中的曝光金额。我们的三分之二的业务是商业车辆，现在受到北美重型卡车市场的弱点的影响。这是一个周期性的市场，而现在它是由于在今年年初生效的排放法规。我们知道这一点，我们一直在规划并通过它管理。在上次衰退期间，在2001年，我们的利润率从前一年跌幅超过6％。这次边距下降约为1.5％。为了成为坦诚的是，由于物质成本，绝对基础的利润率低于2001年，但是当您在低谷上看低谷时，我们已经能够展示我们如何管理下期循环的一些改进。

你可以做些什么来避免未来这些周期？

In commercial vehicles you have to diversify your product portfolio and diversify globally. We've been successful in Europe, where growth is surprisingly strong. They also had an emissions change, in October, but the market is up 8 percent and is expected to stay up for a couple of years because of demand for new vehicles in Eastern Europe. Our supply chain is really getting stretched, as are our customers, and we're all talking about adding capacity.

那段轻型车辆怎么样？

Long term, we want one third of our overall business to be in Asia or with Asian customers. We're underrepresented in Japan, and we're putting on a full-court press there. We have built an engineering center in Yokohama and have a staff of technicians, engineers and salespeople to focus on Japanese customers. I've spent much of my career working with the Japanese manufacturers, and I know that you have to build long-term relationships with them. It's not going to happen overnight, but we started these efforts a couple of years ago, and they're beginning to pay off. We're also building our business with other Asian customers, most recently through our joint venture with Chery Automotive. The Asian market is the other end of the spectrum from North America as far as growth goes, and you have the European manufacturers in between. We want to continue to grow with them both in Europe and in other parts of the world.

What are the special challenges of selling to Asian markets that aren't present in the U.S.?

首先，你必须了解市场。对我们来说的好消息是，自20世纪80年代后期和80年代以来，我们已经在中国和印度。我们对外籍人士和地方管理层有很好的混合，了解供应基地，客户和当地海关要求。

What else is different there?

If you go outside any of the main metropolitan areas in China and India, the vehicles are pretty old and antiquated. But as the market continues to globalize, the customers there are demanding products with the same technology and quality that you would get in North America and Western Europe. The challenge for us is having the people and the quality systems in place and making sure we're providing the right level of product.

您有什么不同的方式，以便为丰田等制造商提供比美国公司更加标准化，高效的生产系统的制造商？

The challenge for us is to ensure our suppliers have the same kind of discipline in place that we do. That's true whether the plants you're serving and the suppliers you're dealing with are in China, India, Eastern Europe or Mexico. If the product you're getting in from your suppliers isn't good, what comes out of your plant will obviously suffer too.

你为什么要推动医疗改革？

竞争,汽车公司在北merica need to address legacy health care and pension costs that companies that have come into this market from Japan, South Korea and other parts of the world do not have to deal with. I'm not convinced there's one solution, but I do think that the public and private sectors need to cooperate. Health care can't be entirely on the backs of either employees or employers. We need to get with the pharmaceuticals companies, the medical care providers, the insurance companies and the government to put some things in place.

With so much doom and gloom surrounding the auto industry, how do you attract talented people to your company?

这是一项挑战。其中一些是感知。我和人们谈谈现实，这就是交通工具 - 包括轻型车辆和商用车辆 - 将继续充满活力。主要区别是，并不是一切都将基于底特律和斯图加特。其中一些将在班加罗尔和上海。还有很多机会。当我与我们招聘的学生交谈时，我告诉他们，“如果你有机会采取外籍人员的转让，无论是，都要，因为它会扩大你的视野，业务正在全球化。”行业正在经历一些变化，但很多是北美洲。在全球范围内，这是一个非常充满活力的行业。