22nd September, Saturday - As a demonstration of Scania’s commitment to customer service by having the best service technicians in its service network, 17 of its best service teams from Asia, Oceania and the Middle East are matching their technical skills against each other in the 2018 Scania Top Team Regional Finals.

Held at the Scania Malaysia headquarters in Bukit Jelutong, the regional finals feature the best service technicians from Australia, Dubai, Iran, Myanmar, Taiwan, Thailand, India, Singapore, New Zealand, Abu Dhabi, Japan, Hong Kong, China, Philippines, Indonesia, South Korea and Malaysia.

Exemplifying Scania’s dedication to its core values the Scania Top Team competition is also an opportunity for the Service Technicians to develop and enhance their skills, knowledge, professionalism and teamwork.

Themed “Driving the Shift”, the 2018 competition is in line with the Company’s global commitment of being the leader in the inevitable shift towards a sustainable transport system. This regional round sees the winning teams from Asia, Oceania and Middle East who qualified in their respective National level competitions last year.

For the regional competition, each five-member team will go through five practical technical challenges and five theoretical challenges stations during which they will be judged on areas such as logistics, methodology, technical knowledge, as well as team discipline and ability to work under pressure.

Only the top four teams will go to the Scania Top Team World Finals in Södertälje, Sweden in December where they will compete against eight others to share a total prize amount of 100,000 Euros.

Malaysia is represented by the Scania Malaysia Ipoh branch team, fondly known as Pendekar Penyu, while Singapore is represented by Scania Singapore, known as Team Dynamic that emerged as the winners during the Scania Top Team National Finals.

“The Top Team Competition this year continues from previous years in enhancing the services skills of our service personnel. The technician’s work in maintaining the uptime of Scania vehicles is a key factor in sustaining the growth of our customer’s business and profitability,” said Marie Sjödin Enström, Managing Director for Scania Southeast Asia.

“There’s a real benefit to the customers in having motivated, competent teams who can attend to the customer’s vehicle as quickly and efficiently as possible, ensuring maximised availability as time is money and therefore good for,” added Marie.

Also in Malaysia for the 2018 Scania Top Team Regional Finals is Scania’s Regional Director for Asia and Oceania, Anders Gustafsson who says Asia has been identified by Scania as the company’s ‘third hub’ after Europe and Latin America.

Although each market has its own economic features, influenced by factors such as cultural aspects, country size and customer profiles, Gustafsson said Scania can separate this huge area into three broad categories.

“First of all, there are the countries in which Scania has had a presence for some time, such as Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. There, the platform is fairly stable, with continuous growth similar to what Scania sees in some parts of Europe such as Sweden and the UK.”

Then there are the areas with enormous possibilities: “We see China, Thailand and Japan as having big growth potential. China sold one million trucks last year, three times that of Europe, but only around 5,000 of those vehicles were imported. Japan’s focus on premium quality suits the Scania strategy.”

Finally, there are the up-and-coming markets such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and, another big prize, India.

One area where Asia is developing a bit differently from Europe, he added, is sustainability that it is driven less by customer demand and more by governments and megacities to radically reduce unacceptable air pollution and traffic congestion levels to tackle issues of health, climate change and economic efficiency.

Highly trained technicians can also contribute to the fuel economy of the vehicle as well as reducing CO2 emissions.

“We are looking at the future of transportation that is getting more electrified, more connected and more automated as well as the use of alternative fuels like biodiesel and biogas.”