Selleck: Tire industry should focus on customers

LAS VEGAS—Among the keys to success in the tire industry is a relentless focus on customers and their evolving needs, Pete Selleck, Michelin North America Inc. chairman and president, told those attending the Tire Industry Association's Awards Night Nov. 2 in Las Vegas.

“Brands are all about trust,” he said during his keynote address. “Your customers are willing to pay a premium if they trust that you're going to do the right thing all the time.”

However, customers are going to be changing. Millennials are not going to buy tires the same way that Baby Boomers do, Selleck pointed out.

“There's too much information out there. They know how to get the information. They want to buy it their way, and they are going to buy it their way,” he said.

“In the end, the consumer is going to dictate it. So we've got to really be tuned in and not think that the consumer of tomorrow is going to be the same as the consumer is today.”

Secondly, he said keeping safety is a huge priority for this industry. Keeping customers safe on the road with safe products and professional services is key.

“We need to be constantly educating people on the basics of tire safety,” Selleck said.

Whether that is the inflation pressure or what depth a tire should be, this information is not necessarily being taught at home, he said.

Lastly, companies need to meet the responsibilities they have to their community and to society at large, he added.

Selleck, also is head of the Rubber Manufacturers Association, used “evolution and the need to change and adapt as needed” as the theme of his presentation.

“(Michelin is) successful as a company because we constantly recognize what makes us good today is not what's going to make us good tomorrow,” he said.

Selleck also used his role as keynoter to point out some trends he said he thought will influence the economy in the U.S. and globally.

The U.S. economy has rebounded more strongly than other developed countries, he said, a situation he credited to cultural adaptability, innovation and less regulation.

He referenced a chart in the Wall Street Journal that showed the U.S. economy has grown 9 percent, after inflation, since the recession of 2008.

“You can see the dramatic growth compared to the Eurozone, which has still not even clocked back up to where it was before the crisis. I think that as (the) Americas, we take a lot of that for granted,” he added.

“But what it really demonstrates is the cultural adaptability of the American market.”

With that, it's the Americas' ability to change and even creatively destroy and rebuild if necessary, Selleck said, that makes it successful.

“There's a lot of parts of the world where there's a lot of regulation that prevents that from happening,” he said.

The U.S. is fortunate to be growing at a rate of roughly 1.5 percent per year, Selleck added.

The biggest external threat to Michelin over the next 20 years, he said, is whether or not the American economy will continue to grow.

“And the biggest single threat, in our minds, in the U.S. economy continuing to grow is the U.S. fiscal budget,” Selleck said. “From our perspective, this is a real problem.”