Innovative Auto-Sector Specialist Focusing on Service and Partnerships

Badsi, a 100% Romanian auto-sector specialist, provides a wide range of auto services, from sales of new vehicles to exemplary after-sales support. General Director Paul Badea aims to boost the company’s annual revenues to around €20 million by 2020 through focusing on providing outstanding customer services and forming productive partnerships.

One of Badsi’s current service innovations is SmartoGo, a cutting-edge “smart” system which links any vehicle equipped with the SmartoGo dongle to the company’s centralised service centre in order to spot any problems with a vehicle before the customer is even aware of them. Paul Badea explains, “SmartoGo is connected to the vehicle’s on board diagnosis port and monitors such things as speed, RPM, air flow and other real-time data as well as pinpointing potential problems and letting the service centre know about them ahead of time. This way we can contact the client, pick up the car and provide a replacement vehicle, and repair the car as quickly as possible, to minimise any inconvenience for our customers as well as saving costs.”

A history of flexibility and resilience

The Badsi Service Way growth plan for 2020 includes what Paul Badea calls a “bottom-up approach to development.” He explains, “We realised that the more formal you get about developing processes, the more you distance yourself from what is actually happening. For example, an official service procedure that seems efficient on paper might take 35 minutes in reality, which is inconvenient for the client and costly for us. Now we are working on making all our processes as efficient as possible by talking to our employees who actually perform these operations to learn the best ways of doing them. Our mechanics know what they need, and we decided to get them directly involved in improving the company’s services. Badsi’s 2020 growth strategy is to develop our know-how and give our people the opportunity to grow by implementing the know-how we develop in other automotive companies. We hope to develop a set of approaches and procedures that would be attractive for anyone in the industry.”

2020 growth plan

Badsi has proved that in addition to developing innovative services, it is able to adapt to challenges and thrive. Founded to handle imports and sales of Nissan vehicles in Romania, the family-owned enterprise flourished until Renault and Nissan formed a world wide alliance. Given Renault’s strong position in Romania due to the stake the French company had in the Romanian manufacturer, Dacia, the Nissan import operations was taken over by Renault. Badsi managed to overcome this major setback but then had to cope with the effects of the global financial crisis. Following the founder’s death in 2013, his children took over the business and turned it around by concentrating on Badsi’s core strengths. As Paul Badea puts it, “We managed to clean up our act and focus on what we did best: selling and servicing cars.”

Paul Badea is also planning to outsource mechanical repair work on vehicles through a system in which a Badsi manager would oversee the work being done by a chosen service centre to ensure that Badsi’s high quality standards were being met. Then the service centre could work with Badsi in the future, knowing that these standards would need to be maintained. Paul Badea says, “We want our clients to be satisfied with our partners’ service quality and we will develop business relationships with partners based on this service quality, not on discounts, special conditions or other criteria.”

Ideal Romanian auto-sector partner

Badsi also wants to work with leading auto companies from outside Romania. Paul Badea explains, “We would like to partner with experienced professionals in the automotive market from countries near Romania, such as in Poland, Bulgaria or the Czech Republic.” For partners, Badsi offers a strong track record in being able to adapt to market changes as well as an innovative approach to management that involves a focus on knowledge and service. Paul Badea says, “Badsi knows how important it is to concentrate on knowledge and learning, and we have shown that we have a very strong team that is willing to change to meet new conditions. In these difficult economic times, these are strengths all companies need.”

Badsi also plans to develop new services, such as fleet management for enterprises. Paul Badea says, “We are targeting SMEs with fleets of around 15 to 20 cars. For such companies, it makes sense to outsource fleet management, and we can take care of everything, from insurance to technical inspections and regular servicing.”