Tom O’Brien has more than 30 years of aftermarket experience with various roles in sales, operations and management. He joined SKF in 2007 and served as the vice president of automotive sales for SKF Vehicle Service Market (VSM), North America. In January 2014, O’Brien was appointed president of the SKF VSM, North America Business Unit and now oversees all sales and marketing initiatives for the SKF VSM automotive and heavy-duty aftermarkets in North America. Counterman’s sister publication, aftermarketNews, sat down with O’Brien, just two months shy of one year in this new role. In the interview, he talks about the company’s recent expansion efforts, as well as his goals and plans for the business moving forward.

Tell us about the new Global Technical Center that SKF announced earlier this summer. The facility will be located in Chicago, correct? Talk to us about the company’s overall global strategy and how this location fits into the company’s plans.

You are correct. The new SKF Global Technical Center – Americas (GTCA) will be located in Naperville, a western suburb of Chicago and a high-tech corridor in the Midwest. It’s a great location and we’re excited about building this new 130,000-square-foot facility. The Center combines state of the art technical resources with our resident knowledge experts to create a culture of collaboration and innovation. It will feature advanced product development and validation; specialized testing capabilities for aerospace and energy platforms as well as automotive and heavy-duty applications. It will focus on design integration of SKF’s five technical platforms of bearings, seals, lubrication systems, mechatronics and services. The Center also will be home for the seventh SKF Solution Factory in North America, which gives our customers access to SKF’s full global capabilities to deliver custom solutions. The new Global Technical Center positions SKF to meet our customers’ current needs and address market demands of the future.

What categories do you see as most important to SKF over the next several years? What opportunities and challenges do you foresee in the marketplace?

SKF is the world leader in bearing and sealing solution development. What we see in all market channels including automotive is the desire to optimize performance and integrate solutions. In automotive, light-duty and heavy-duty applications the focus continues to be on low friction bearings and seals to maximize fuel efficiency and reduce carbon emissions. There also is continued focus on electronic integration monitoring of all areas of the vehicle, whether it’s at the wheel-end or drivetrain. SKF is focused on all areas of the vehicle from an OE perspective so we are seeing and developing these solutions firsthand. The key for the future is having suppliers like SKF that can be a leader in OE product development and deliver this to the aftermarket in a cost-effective manner, which I believe SKF does in a very good way today.

As the new president of SKF Vehicle Service Market (VSM), North America Business Unit, can you tell us what changes you’ve seen in the industry and what changes lie ahead for SKF?

For the past several years, manufacturers that supply premium quality components have faced significant competition with value grade component suppliers because they offer lower cost products. It has become increasingly important for SKF to educate technicians about the premium quality difference we deliver – and how it protects their reputation and their customers’ safety. We believe that if the technician understands the differences between value grade and premium quality parts, they will feel comfortable encouraging their customers to choose the premium quality products that will keep them safe and increase customer satisfaction. We have focused on this over the past few years and will continue doing so.

Nowadays, customers are looking for information that will help them effectively sell and install the product. What is SKF doing to share its product and technical knowledge with customers?

We offer a number of learning channels to help technicians stay informed:

You may have heard of the SKF training trucks, which travel to various customer locations in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. Staffed by ASE Master-Certified technicians, the training trucks are a mobile classroom complete with hands-on training for technicians and counter people.

The trucks contain detailed product cutaways of SKF premium hub bearings, heavy-duty products and seals, technical tips, videos and more. They are designed to not only teach technicians how to educate customers about the differences between SKF products and competitor components, but provide instruction on proper wheel-end maintenance and repair.

Additionally, the SKF Pole Position program for automotive technicians and the SKF Heavy Duty Pit Crew program for heavy-duty truck technicians provide the most up-to-date technical information, training literature and product knowledge to help them maintain a profitable repair business. Members of these programs receive technical training guides, periodic e-newsletters and more.

Our newest way of sharing information is through the SKF Parts Info social media program, involving a YouTube channel and Twitter page. It is a great mobile platform because technicians can view information about SKF products and services from their computers, their tablets and their phones – virtually anywhere.

Everyone is buzzing about social media. How is SKF using social media to communicate with customers?

About a year ago, SKF Vehicle Service Market in North America became active on social media primarily in response to feedback from our sales team. We learned that while printed materials (guides, brochures etc.) have their place, today’s technicians truly benefit from the usefulness of well-done how-to videos.

Our social media strategy involves a YouTube channel (skfpartsinfo.tv), that has more than 50 product and technical tip videos that average about 30,000 views and 55,000 minutes watched per month, and a Twitter page that is a quick resource for sharing these videos and all kinds of information, such as where the training truck will be, new product news and more.

SKF has maintained a leadership role in the industry through partnerships and strong leaders. How will SKF maintain its leadership role in the industry moving forward?

SKF can’t tackle this global industry by itself. We can only go as far as our partners take us.

We’ve surrounded ourselves with people who help us maintain and build on our reputation as an industry leader. We’ve achieved success by working together and we’ll move forward together to provide our customers with not only the best products, but also the best service and support.

A good example of this is SKF’s research and development collaboration with technical partners and universities globally. Closer to home another excellent example is our relationship with Team Penske in NASCAR. SKF engineers immersed in racing get to see extreme driving conditions first-hand and find ways to improve current products or develop new products for the automotive and heavy-duty aftermarket.