In an exclusive interview with Asian Trucker, Michael Hutt, Group Marketing Manager Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group tells us more about the ins and outs of the recently held Gyration 2.0: Kinetic Ignition event.

In terms of timing, some might have raised an eyebrow as it was held right around Chinese New Year. However, according to Hutt, there was a good reason to start the year with a bang. “We have spent last year to re-align our business, the brand and our product and service offerings. And this is how we are planning to communicate this,” explained Hutt. There are to be now three distinct segments of the business and each one will have its own event series.

According to him, one segment is related to Giti products. It is probably the biggest growing tranche for Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group and this is the reason why the Gyration event series was the first to be initiated with the first instalment taking place last year. In that connection, Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group is aiming to shift their focus from being purely a tyre-seller towards their service-based business that offers support beyond just product.

Although most people are very aware of how to look after tyres, Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group realises that certain things will have to be brought back to peoples mind. For instance, heat build-up is highly destructive for tyres and can have a highly negative impact on the re-treadability of the tyre. As an exclusive event for existing customers, the Gyration 2.0: Kinetic Ignition event was to educate users about both heat and the 3R concept of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. “It is important to note that Giti has already made public statements that they want to sell fewer tyres as they want users to be able to run tyres for longer.” In Hutt’s words, this is where Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group is breaking new ground as they are actively helping to achieve this goal.

A paradigm shift is happening within Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group as they see tyres as an investment that needs to have planned maintenance in place to ensure that the return on the investment is as high as possible. To demonstrate what is possible, Kit Loong Commercial Tyre Group is giving away their newly developed software for free for the first year. Not stopping there, they are also including a retread voucher for each new tyre sold. The discount on the retread is based on the grading of the tyre when it comes back for retreading. “Essentially, it pays to look after your tyres as you will save on the retreading. And if you don’t look after your tyre, no matter what brand, it will not perform as well as it could, as many are now designed for two or three retreads.”