The South African Motor Body Repairers’ Association (SAMBRA) and the Tyre, Equipment, Parts Association (TEPA), both proud associations of the Retail Motor Industry Organisation (RMI) are two of the organisations who will be presenting papers at this year’s HyperMobility virtual conference on 18 November.
Arranged by Messe Frankfurt South Africa, a subsidiary of one of Europe’s oldest and largest trade fair, congress and event organizers, in partnership with Naamsa (The National Association of Automobile Manufacturers of South Africa) and in association with AutoTrader, the theme of this year’s conference is “Navigating the turbulence together towards mobility 4.0.”
The conference program has been carefully designed to impart ground breaking business strategies, and will discuss and unpack the impact of the current operating environment and propose practical solutions on how the future could look like beyond the pandemic. “Experts speakers have been drawn from across different sectors of the economy who influence directly and/or indirectly the future of the automotive industry and its related industries both locally and globally,” says Neil Piper, head of content management for Messe Frankfurt South Africa.
Richard Green national director of SAMBRA, will be discussing the future of autobody repair in the face of the current aftermath of Covid-19 and its impact on the economy. He will also examine the impact on South African insurers and the trend of consumers starting to migrate away from costly comprehensive vehicle insurance offerings. “The big question,” says Green “is how these new reduced cost policies will impact the MBR sector, not only financially, but also in the area of client expectations and satisfaction.” There is no doubt that consumer’s changing mobility profiles will significantly impact the future outlook, as will the interaction of insurers with autobody repairers influenced by the emergence of new ABR groupings.
Hedley Judd, national director of TEPA will be looking at supply chain risk in volatile times and focusing on how to build resilience and agility into one’s supply chain to lessen the impact of risk events. This will include the importance of digitising one’s supply chain to become more efficient and resilient and the value of engaging employees in the process to ensure a more agile, adaptable and aligned supply chain.
The conference will consist of a morning plenary main stage as well as three specialised breakaway afternoon streams, namely: Supply, Value chain and Logistics; Manufacturing, Component and Repair and The Future of Mobility.