New differences happen to Honda

The new agency business model will bring better new cars and cooler technology to Australian buyers. Question is that is Honda going to be the BMW of Japan again? Don't bet on it as the company is preparing to restructure its business model in Australia on July 1, 2021, from a sales oriented mainstream company to a customer-centric high-end brand, providing high-quality design and engineering vehicles.

All in all, Honda is turning to an "agency business model" in which the Japanese owned and controlled company, rather than its 100 strong nationwide dealer networks, owns the shares it sells. Compared with Apple's global operations, this will be a fixed pricing model rather than a negotiation model, which will bring greater consistency, transparency and convenience to buyers. Online ordering will also get more attention.

Honda acknowledged that this non bargaining approach could lead to lower sales costs, but it has long insisted that private buyers, rather than fleet buyers, are at the heart of the brand, and that, in any case, the number of loyal consumers is higher than industry standards.

Such a high level of engineering technology helped Honda in its founder, Soichiro Honda, 1906-1991) flourished under the visionary management concept, and fostered a culture of technological progress and innovation, especially in engine, suspension and body engineering, from the pioneering NSX super sports car to the most humble civic in the 1980s and 1990s, which made the brand stand out as "BMW of Japan".

It is clear that there will be more new models in Honda's product line, most of them with some kind of electrification, as the company reconnects its advanced engineering heritage to help overcome increasingly stringent emission regulations. After all, the Civic and CVCC combustion process was the first mass-produced car that could meet stringent anti-pollution laws as early as 1974.

In addition, while today's Honda HR-V, Honda Civic (except Type R), Honda CR-V, Jazz Honda and Honda Accord are all from Thailand to help maintain price competitiveness, the latter reason is no longer a convincing consideration, as recent exchange rate fluctuations have made Japan a more reliable purchasing prospect.

Honda did that and then flourished as CR-V resonated with buyers around the world. In Australia, the company aims to achieve a record annual sale of 80000 vehicles by 2010, which will leave it behind Toyota, Holden and Ford, but ahead of Mazda, Hyundai and Mitsubishi. However, such heights have never been reached, with only 44000 buyers for the brand last year, down 15% from the figure in 2018. This year's pandemic has reduced the proportion by nearly 40%.

As a result, a wider range of technologies and options are available on Japanese made models for Honda Australia to choose from. An example of this is the availability of manual transmissions from Civic and HR-V, which are not available on Thai made models.