What went wrong, well to put it into motoring terms, if you have 4 nuts that can't do the job properly, the wheels fall off.

 

Sorry to hear about you loosng your job and IMO, you have every right to be miffed. Must get pretty tiresome to keep being told your job is on the line. Then to lose it.

You have my sympathies and good luck with finding a new job.

 

What went wrong, well to put it into motoring terms, if you have 4 nuts that can't do the job properly, the wheels fall off.

Ha! I like that a lot! Post of the week for sure!! :beer2:

 

I know the P4 weren't doing all they could do in the end but the press, public bodies who could have bought cars and the Chinese brought MGR down.

Yes cityrover was a mistake and perhaps the SV a luxury but otherwise the Z cars etc, 75 tourers all did well.

The second facelift wasn't wholly successful but the press and China to me did more damage than most. Marketing was almost non existent but then they didn't have the money.

Also why develop gorgeous V8's and the SV and not ship em to the USA where they would do very well.

 

I actually thought that the Hooray... let's take the MG advertisements worked very well. In my opinion, the most effective advertising for any Austin/Rover/M brand in years. But judging by the mess we're in... evidently not well enough :err:


John

 

I think the problem lay deeper than advertising. I suspect that evem BMW with all their marketing power would struggle to sell cars that everyone knew were 10 years old even with a facelift.

It is unfortunate that Rover learned nothing from BMW in this area, because it is certainly true that the German company could sell anything and the BMW 1-series proves that.

 

d] The Discuss system i tried to change my car at the end of March it was down so the dealer had no idea what was on offer, discounts etc, so i told them to forget it.

sounds like the problems that my dealer often had with that system. I reckon it would have been quicker to drive down to Longbridge and have a look. They could have saved some money by getting rid of it (and those associated with it).

 

The blame lies with marketing!

Very bad marketing of great products.

Discus never upto date wouldn't have helped either.

Gang of 4 did their best!

 

sounds like the problems that my dealer often had with that system. I reckon it would have been quicker to drive down to Longbridge and have a look. They could have saved some money by getting rid of it (and those associated with it).

Discus was hopelessly outdated and used yesterdays technology - that was the root of all it's problems.

I remember "Dealership TV" being broadcast into the Dealerships weekly via a hooooge satellite on the roof....all thanks to BMW!

As soon as BMW went, so went the TV/Satellite service equipment etc we had all been forced to invest in!

 

I am Very,VERY sorry that your lost your job my dear. I lost a couple over the years and its hard, very HARD. One reson Why i am and have been self employed over the last 11 years.

Rover simply didn't have the resources to do what was required. Ford spend £1 to 1.5 Billion on a new car. They don't spend this cash because they like to spend cash,it's because they have to.

First question i asked about 5 years ago on this VERY BB was "Where are MGR going to get the cash/Engineers from?

No Body could give a good answer.
CityRover?
I hear that it was agreed that the base version was going to be under £5000 and the top spec under £6000................than the P4 got greedy and simply didn't understand what they were trying to do. I bet they never drove the Cityrover or the other cars it faced in that part of the market.

The China deal was nothing more than a "Debt hand off" and as soon as SIAC saw the REAL books they sussed!

I hope very soon you get a new job and get to put all this behind you my dear. Like so many people you shouls have had a better deal.
Cheers
Mike (MEGA)

 

The blame lies with marketing! .........Gang of 4 did their best!

apart from the fact that they were cr*p marketeers and poor leaders perhaps?

 

I think the problem lay deeper than advertising. I suspect that evem BMW with all their marketing power would struggle to sell cars that everyone knew were 10 years old even with a facelift.

Was the 75 brought out in 1995?

Were the poor sales of the 25 and 45 in 1999 and 2001 because they were brought out in 1989 or 1991?

Do car model sales suddenly fall through the roof after about 7 years? Some of the current/recent cars that sell/have sold the best: Golf III, Focus I, Fiesta II, Astra III, Magane I, 206, Passat II. Not exactly spring chickens, and I'm sure there areplenty of other examples.

Can someone explain please?

 

Is it really marketing? Some products just seem to click and become " must have" objects, while better stuff falls by the wayside. When I'm doing my domestic bit with the Dyson I find it the most awkward badly designed piece of kit I've ever handled, yet its the class leader. Perhaps MGR should have bribed the Beckams to use MGR's for a while?, after all he is ( was? sorry not into soccer) the England captain.

 

Ha! From experience (FWIW) I wouldn't touch a Dyson again!

 

Discus never upto date wouldn't have helped either.

What never? Not once? Ever, ever?

You're talking ballcocks Jerry :irked:

John

 

Discus system is very good but it does have it's problems. It is certainly no worse then other manufactures. On saying that most of the problems wear to do with the computers at dealer as we found out 4 months ago when they wear all replaced never had any problems up to the Administration. They never really kept it up to date as any cars that wear not sold we shifted to MG Rover Direct.

 

Leaving aside the dodgy business practices of the P4, which I guess we'll know more about when PWC have completed their investigation, I think the major issues were shoddy marketing and poor finish/specification.

Shoddy marketing -did anyone see that patriot ad crap with Bergerac? It looked so bloody desperate.

Poor finish -all the issues raised here, and my personal hobby-horse, the crappy BL era hinged key. Someone has overcome all the poor marketing, still wants a 45, and you put someting in their hand that feels like it came out of a cracker...

 

Someone has overcome all the poor marketing, still wants a 45, and you put someting in their hand that feels like it came out of a cracker...

 

Well strange cos everytime I have talked to a dealer they do nothing but praise Discus...especially those dealers that used to sell MG Rover and now sell something different....

Jerry as far as Discus not being up to date.... welll for 1 you know better than that and it looks like just another personal attack from Mr Flint, not that I'm not used to them by now.... thanks Jerry yeah "Great Team"!

Koala, well sorry no you dont know what you were talking about....

How do I know all this well Koalla I'm the one you have suggested should have got the sack... I managed Discus for the last 5 years, oh and yes I introduced the policy to MG Rover of working with Jerry and Steve, instead of trying to sue forums into the ground (which was the policy we had left over from BMW!!!)

Discus was actually so good that BMW took a developement of Discus to use as their own system (shame the developement was flawed!! ) and Land Rover contined to use it until last year as well.. indeed I believe that Ford had considered using it across the whole of PAG... instead they developed a web based version of the same package and have already rolled that out globally for Land Rover and Jaguar!!!

Discus myths exposed

1) It didnt work most the time, actually nonsense we had the best system tech I've ever worked with and a call centre with 20 people in it.

Yes it sometimes went down at one dealership or another, though it rarely went entirely off air, twice in 5 years I believe....ask Steve or one of your techie friends how good that is as a system disaster recovery.. but for fcuks sake it was responsible for approx 100,000 orders a year and had been for approx 10 years

Oh and if a dealer did find his system down all he would have to do is phone one of the ever helpful girls on the Order control helpline... so to be honest either you or your dealer in march was talking ********!!!

2) It was out of date, Discus was quite possibly the worlds first stab at a dealer management system... (well second the first was Rover Groups psion II based system back in the early 90's but we wont talk about that) well yes if you are talking about the technology using a system of clients and servers is out of date and yes it was due for replacement....actually it had been due for replacement for years, but nobody either inside the company or from outside tender had offered a system that came near it.

3) The specifications and pricing were out of date....********....my job as I saw it was to support those who worked hardest for us...The Dealer Network... The timing of specification release had a variety of reasons around it, clearing old stock out was one of them.

I am proud of the achievements, proud because the Dealers that I know and trust were happy with my support and proud because even now the name Discus appears to mean something

Oh and Jerry....a thought occurs....if Discus was ever out of date it was probably due to me having to take time out to listen to your whining on the phone about the V8 that I told you not to buy in the first place.

 

As far as i am concerned, this is why the comapny failed...

1 ) No new cars. They inherited an aging line up and did thier best to keep them fresh, but this was only ever going to be a stopgap measure. They needed new metal and to do this they needed a partner...

2 ) BMW. I feel the fatal blow happened when BMW sold Land Rover to Ford, kept MINI and then disposed of the remains. MG and Rover were saddled with massive overheads, a 'jobs for life' deal with too many workers and a portfolio that was aging fast. Given this situation, the clock was ticking from a financial point of view.

3 ) Poor management. They had 5 years to do a deal with a partner, lots of failed attempts and no major successes. This is a management failure in my book - the P4 did lots of things right, indeed i have a sneaking admiration for what they accomplished, but they failed where it mattered most i reckon. That said, the chips were stacked against them in this area...

4 ) The media. Cars tend to have a limited lifespan - MGRs line up were in thier last quarter and the continual negative press hastened the end. If the press had been positive, more people would have bought the cars and there would have been more money in the pot to keep the company afloat until a partnership deal could be done. Every news report that started "Troubled car maker MG Rover" is a shedload of lost sales. Eventually it became a self fulfilling prophesy and it makes my blood boil.

And that's basically it as far as i am aware. The Chinese had a hand in it, but thier stalling tactics are part and parcel of big business - it's not nice, but that's the way it is. The Government could have done more, but other than re-nationalisation (which i think would have been a disaster) i doubt it could have helped much. The P4 missed a big trick with regard to MG and the USA, i know the reasons why they never returned there, but the brand has significant value in this market and if they had marketed the ZT, SV and most importantly the TF in the US then there would have been more money coming into the pot. A reasonable amount of BMWs dowry should have been spent on enlarging the TF production capacity and getting the car type approved - without the TF, there was no real market for the ZT - it's a 'foot in the door', once done though the potential for the brand over there is huge. If you have exhausted your markets, and have no new products, find new markets.

So, with no partnership deal and therefore no new product, it was only a matter of time before the pot ran dry.

 

OK, its not often I speak but this time I will...

As an ex Dealer (not employee of a Dealer) and an ex member of the MG Rover IT Taskforce I feel that I am qualified to speak on this subject.

When Discus was launched in 1995 it was a world leading system, compared to what we had before it was nothing short of awesome. I used it for years to sell and source cars it was a magnificent sales tool.

What (if anything) went wrong? simple! peoples expectations became greater because of the onset of Broadband etc, discus was then deemed as slow and cumbersome. In reality discus was not really slow and cumbersome, it was still an awesome system that would have blinded every dealer had it not existed. I also had other franchises with links to some VERY BIG players in manufacturer terms, their systems were a total joke compared to discus and yet on the IT taskforce there were huge moves and intiatives to improve what was still an excellent system, I take my hat off to the techies and geeks (sorry) at MGR.

Simon G stated that he convinced MGR Management that working with forums was better than fighting them, he is absolutely correct in his statement, for some reason MGR thought this website and forum belonged to me and Simon G was forever on my phone working with me/Steve to steer the website through potentially stormy political waters. (well done Si)

Marketing .... hindsight is a wonderfull thing...

SV & V8 75/ZT..... waste of time and money...

City Rover .... Fantastic Opportunity flawed by quality issues.

My final comment would be "If you were not directly involved - keep your opinions to yourself" Only those in the know, i.e dealers and relevant employees have any right to comment on this subject.

 

What went wrong?

Yeah, probably the lack of money.
Not enough money to sell cars worldwide. Europe only is not enough, they should have tried to establish in America (again), especially when they had the V6/V8s.
Not enough money to develop the new turbo diesels in time. The revamped 25 and 45 could have done much better if they had a 110/135 bhp TD commonrail, especially in France, Spain and Germany where Diesels actually outsell petrol engines.
Not enough money to offer a better city car, or at least, to give up on some profit with the CityRover.
Not enough money to deepen the effect of the revamps, which were good but didn't address the problem of perceived quality (at least that's what I read in the few road tests I could find).
At least they used some money in the RWD platforms, which are now an interesting asset, as I read in Autocar yesterday.

 

My final comment would be "If you were not directly involved - keep your opinions to yourself" Only those in the know, i.e dealers and relevant employees have any right to comment on this subject.

Absolutely 100% spot on. Couldn't agree more. Some very good posts on the subject so far. Keep it up (unless you don't know what you're talking about - nameing no names....10th post down....page 1 )

 

Of the 9 75's and ZT's that I have bought over the past 5 years, I can't ever remember Discus ever being down.

Being a bit of an MG Rover anorak, I have always badgered my local dealer for info on the new models that have been launched and I have never failed in getting the info, as soon as the announcement has been made to the press. In fact, on occasions, Discus has been updated before press announcement. For instance the TF Spark and 2005 75 range was on Discus before the press site was updated.

How many times have you been into a rivals dealership for them to say that the Press and Public know what is going on before the dealers do? That certainly can't be said for MG Rover.

 

Koala, well sorry no you dont know what you were talking about....

How do I know all this well Koalla I'm the one you have suggested should have got the sack... I managed Discus for the last 5 years, oh and yes I introduced the policy to MG Rover of working with Jerry and Steve, instead of trying to sue forums into the ground (which was the policy we had left over from BMW!!!)

Simon, I've no idea where you think I work, but it isn't within the auto industry, and never has been. My only comment on this thread has been to say that my dealer has had problems with Discus. A member of the dealership staff did go to Longbridge the day after I enquired about a new car and checked there as they were having problems with the system.

Just so that you know, I live several hours away from Birmingham and work in education, so how you think that you could get me sacked is beyond me, do you now work for Ofsted?

I don't know who you have a gripe with, but it isn't me.

I await your apology.