Kia South Africa this weekend rewarded its top-performing dealerships across the country with prizes for outstanding achievements in sales, after-sales and service operations. The 2023 Kia Dealer of the Year Awards, which encompass the period July 2022 to June 2023, was held during the brand’s leadership conference at The Marriott in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg.
The conference and awards was hosted by Kia South Africa’s CEO, Gary Scott, and attended by senior leadership from its full dealer network, key network partners and representatives from Kia’s regional headquarters for the Middle East and Africa in Dubai.
“This has been a year of two halves, the first characterised by global stock shortages and the second by weak market conditions,” comments Scott. “Our dealer network has responded well to this changing dynamic and a dealer conference gives us an opportunity to both reward excellence as well as to set out our stall for the 12 months ahead. We’re honoured to have a national team of business partners who deliver on our purpose of making each one of our customer’s journeys through daily life count.”
In most categories, awards comprise a bronze, silver and gold award while, in some award categories, this is further broken down by dealership size. For the 2023 awards, Kia has also consolidated many of its previous awards in order to best encapsulate that success must be achieved across all the various business elements to truly represent excellence.
This consolidation was most apparent in the new Aftersales Dealer of the Year award, which considers a dealership’s performance across CSI, service operations, accessories sales, parts sales as well as training compliance and completion.
- Gold awards were presented to Kia The Glen, Kia Brackenfell, Kia Hermanus and Kia Paarl.
- Silver awards were presented to Kia Tygervalley, Kia Menlyn, Kia Empangeni and Kia Welkom.
- Bronze awards were presented to Kia Wonderboom, Kia Springfield, Kia George and Kia Queenstown.
In addition, Kia also presented a number of Inspiration awards to individuals who have excelled in their respective roles within the aftersales space:
- Service Advisor of the Year: Nokuphiwe Bawana of Kia Pietermaritzburg
- Service Manager of the Year: Terrence Moodley of Kia Pietermaritzburg
- Master Technician of the Year: Mark de Klerk of Kia Vryheid
- Parts Manager of the Year: Nervashin Padayachy of Kia The Glen
- Warranty Administrator of the Year: Sumendiran Naidoo of Kia Umhlanga
For the Sales Dealer of the Year award, dealerships were measured on their sales-to-target achievement for the year, volume sales by unit and other sales-related elements.
- Gold awards were presented to Kia Northcliff, Kia Menlyn and Kia Brits.
- Silver awards were presented to Kia The Glen, Kia Springs and Kia Empangeni.
- Bronze awards were presented to Kia Fourways and Kia Bryanston.
Fleet and corporate sales are a crucial part of many dealerships’ success and often require months of relationship building before orders are secured. The Kia Fleet Sales Dealer of the Year awards were determined based on the number of fleet sales generated during the previous financial year, the number of model variants sold, as well as the number of corporate clients sold to. The winner for 2023 was Kia Northcliff.
Kia South Africa also presented a series of Inspiration awards to individuals who have excelled in their respective roles within the sales space:
- Sales Executive of the Year awards were presented to Sandile Mdlovu of Kia eSwatini, Stuart King of Kia Hermanus, Mary Sekgobela of Kia Menlyn and Tumi Morokolo of Kia Hatfield. Proving that individual commitment to training and skills development is a critical component of success, all these sales executives also received Inspiration awards for Training Compliance & Completion.
- Sales Manager of the Year awards were presented to Corita van den Berg of Kia Brits, Vusi Ngidi of Kia Menlyn, and Gavin Edwards of Kia Northcliff.
Finally, the most prestigious award of the night, that of overall Kia Dealer of the Year, went to Kia The Glen. Proving that excellence across all aspects of business operations is critical to a business’ success, dealer principal Kabelo Tlailane and his team’s successes across sales, after-sales and service operations resulted in Kia The Glen, in the south of Johannesburg, ranking highest in this year’s awards.
“Kabelo and his team have proved over the 12 months over which the awards were determined that it is leadership in action that defines a successful business,” comments Gary Scott. “They have worked to shift standards in all aspects of their business, living up to the brand slogan, ‘Movement that inspires’”.
