Goodyear sees strong demand for products

Goodyear is seeing strong demand for its products as it continues to optimize manufacturing and balance supply chain difficulties so far this year. The company has released several new products this year as it works to integrate Cooper Tire into its ranks.

Renee Radabaugh, Goodyear vice president, sales channels and category, consumer North America; and Cary Budzinski, senior director, commercial sales, North America, share an update about the business so far this year.

How would you describe business thus far in 2022?

Radabaugh: As we entered the year, there was high demand for our products, and we made significant strides in our efforts to optimize manufacturing and supply chain to continue delivering service to customers.

While remaining agile in reacting to the external market conditions our industry faced so far this year, we've been heavily focused on progressing the integration of Cooper into our business.

We're already seeing tremendous value from bringing new talent into the company, expanding our portfolio and leveraging best practices across Goodyear and Cooper.

While the integration has kept us busy, it hasn't prevented us from delivering new products, including several that will help prepare Goodyear for future automotive trends.

For example, we launched our first electric-specific replacement tire in North America for consumer applications and last-mile delivery vehicles.

We also began replacing a portion of petroleum-based oil with a more sustainable soybean oil in the tread compound of certain commercial tire models.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed the way you currently do business?

Budzinski: The pandemic really demonstrated our ability to be agile and innovative to form creative solutions in a challenging environment. From quickly converting to contact-free service to leveraging video- call platforms to remaining close to our customers, we found ways to continue driving our business despite the many challenges the pandemic threw at us.

We have learned a lot, and I believe we are now much better positioned to react quickly to any challenge we face.

Has there been improvement with the supply chain?

Budzinski: While the global supply chain has not quite normalized, we've seen some relief as businesses across many industries have implemented ways to work around some of the external factors we can't control.

Within our business, the actions we took in 2020 and 2021 to optimize our manufacturing and supply chain helped us to continue delivering for our customers this year.Can you provide a general update on the Cooper integration?

Radabaugh: In June, we reached our one-year anniversary milestone of the acquisition of Cooper. To date, we've made great progress on integrating our two organizations. We've also consolidated our financials and accomplished a great deal of behind-the-scenes work on our brand architecture and product portfolio.

As we get into the second half of the year, we'll be working in earnest to combine our back-end systems, which will allow customers to interact with our two businesses as one manufacturer. This is a complex area of the integration, and we have many resources across both companies fully dedicated to this effort.

Are there plans to move distribution of all Cooper products to Goodyear customers through TireHub?

Budzinski: Earlier this year, we began distributing consumer Cooper products through TireHub to our company-owned locations, and we have a robust workstream dedicated to evaluating additional dealer and distributor opportunities.

What sector offers the most growth potential?

Budzinski: One sector where we anticipate growth is last-mile delivery. Online shopping rapidly increased during the pandemic, and we believe this trend is here to stay, which will put more delivery trucks on the road. At Goodyear, we have a variety of both consumer and commercial truck tires to meet the needs of last-mile vehicles, including our electric-specific Endurance RSA tire for electric last-mile delivery vehicles.

Do you expect to roll out any additional products in 2022?

Radabaugh: We anticipate the launch of several new products and expanded tire sizes in the all-terrain category in the back half of the year, as well as an expansion of our line of replacement tires designed for electric vehicles.

What technology will be a game-changer in the tire market?

Budzinski: Anything we can do to make it easier for consumers and fleets to manage their tire programs will be a game changer in the tire industry. Goodyear's tire management solutions are an example of this technology that can make tires more "intelligent," alerting drivers to potential issues and helping them to optimize tire maintenance.

Our tire management solutions like Goodyear TPMS Plus, CheckPoint and Tire Optix, help commercial fleets monitor tire conditions like pressure and ambient temperature so they can make adjustments or proactively seek maintenance as needed. And our tire intelligence platform collects data from these tire management solutions and uses a unique algorithm to offer insights and trends over time on tire performance.

How is Goodyear addressing sustainability?

Radabaugh: We have a global ambition to replace petroleum-derived oils in our products by 2040. One of the ways we are working toward this goal is by selecting more sustainable materials like soybean oil for our products that deliver the same or enhanced product quality and performance.

We are taking two approaches — looking at future products that can incorporate soybean oil and refreshing existing lines with the more sustainable compound without affecting the tire's performance.

Do you expect any other major investments in the next six months or year, in either personnel, distribution facilities or capacity expansions?

Radabaugh: As we shared on our first-quarter earnings call, we are in the planning stages for two significant expansions within our existing footprint and modernizations at two of our Americas factories. As the planning process is completed, more details will be shared.

What are some of the challenges of the industry going forward?

Budzinski: We anticipate that e-commerce utilization by consumers will continue to drive up demand for truck tires, particularly in the regional and last-mile delivery segments. We will need to continue taking steps to address market demand to help keep our fleet customers on the roads delivering goods.

Anything else you would like to add?

Radabaugh: We are extremely excited to deliver the even greater value of the integration between Goodyear and Cooper to our customers in 2023.