By Park Jin-hai
Kia Motors’ global dealers convened in Seoul to share the company’s vision and discuss sales strategies, the company announced Monday.
During the four-day meeting until Oct. 24, some 260 dealers invited from 110 countries will visit the Namyang research center and Hyundai Steel’s Dangjin plant and test-drive newly launched cars as well as hold a business conference.
Among the invited are Abdullatif Al Jabr, chairman and CEO of Al Jabr Group, and Israeli Talcar Group CEO Rami Ungar and its president Gadi Ungar.
In the business conference to be held Tuesday, brand strategy, dealer training and overseas after service strategies will be shared, the new Sorento and Carnival, two Kia Motors’ models, will be introduced.
The group will visit Namyang Technology Research Center and test-drive Sorento, Carnival and Soul electric vehicles. They will also visit Hyundai Steel’s production facility and see how its vertical business structure creates a win-win situation.
Hyundai Motor Group, the parent group of Kia Motors, says that the company will organize more global conferences in Seoul, and are planning to build a global business center on the 80,000-square-meters of land they acquired from KEPCO in Samsung-dong.
“With the global business center, we will be able to hold global conferences in Seoul and develop the country’s MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) infra structure,” said a company official.
Hyundai hold over 500 global events a year worldwide. In June, it held a 1,500-strong American dealer meeting in Anaheim, in California. In the same month a Canadian dealer meeting was also organized in Las Vegas. In September, some 1,000 Brazilian dealers held a meeting in the South American country.
Kia Motors, too, held Soul EV’s media event in San Tiago, Chile in March, where 57 journalists from 13 countries attended.
Last year, a total of 28,300 people attended Hyundai’s overseas conventions. The company estimates it will reach 29,000 this year.
“As the group’s affiliates grow in size, their global production and sales networks have expanded fast. Thus it became all the more important to share the group’s status and vision between management and interested parties,” added the official.