Johan de Nysschen isn’t messing around with Cadillac, for better or for worse. His latest move was to notify dealers at a meeting in Las Vegas that they had to “step up” to assist with the long-term goals he has in mind. The problem is that right now, that’s a pretty vague statement to make. Some dealers have taken the hint that the dealership and the mannerisms of their employees need to be brought up to a higher level in order to facilitate the appearance that de Nysschen is striving towards. Some dealers are going well above and beyond and are building separate dealerships for Cadillacs only.
Other dealerships aren’t seeing the light at the end of the tunnel at all and believe that de Nysschen’s words are a thinly-veiled “shape up or ship out” message. Though there was no mention of a dealer reduction by de Nysschen at all…in fact, at the Las Vegas meeting he mentioned that he believed that the larger dealer network could be an asset…but not everybody is buying that story. One dealer from the Midwest has already lawyered up, getting Richard Sox, a lawyer who represented Cadillac dealerships that had been targeted for closure during the 2009 bankruptcy proceedings. According to Sox, the dealership is near a large urban area and competes with several other nearby Cadillac dealers for foot traffic, and the dealer believes that he will be shut down as Cadillac strives to reduce the dealer numbers.
For comparison’s sake, Cadillac has 924 dealerships in the U.S., versus 361 for Mercedes and 338 for BMW. However, the two German marques outsell Caddy by about five-to-0ne currently.
Courtesy: Automotive News
