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Christian Chia awarded CADA Laureate for 2012 Innovator of the Year.

Chris Eastwood on July 19, 2012

Markham, ON, 2012

Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) Chairman Al MacPhee has announced that Christian Chia of OpenRoad Auto Group in Richmond, BC has won the CADA Laureate dealer recognition award for 2012 in the category of Business Innovation.

The Laureate award is considered to be the highest honour a new car and truck dealer can receive over the course of his or her career. “It’s a true industry award,” said MacPhee. “Hundreds of nominations are received from industry stakeholders across Canada – from fellow dealers, industry suppliers and automobile manufacturers. But only three dealers win the Laureate award each year, from among more than 3,200 dealers in Canada. So it’s an exceptionally exclusive and prestigious honour.”

CADA’s partner in the Laureate program, Alnoor Jiwani, Senior Vice-President, Industrial Alliance – SAL Group, observed that “Christian Chia is taking auto retailing to a higher level. The list of innovations implemented by his OpenRoad Auto Group is extensive and impressive and each one enhances the OpenRoad brand. Whether it’s the in-house development of new shop software or a home-grown management development program, Christian is always looking for new and better ways to develop staff, serve customers and build the OpenRoad brand. It’s a winning combination.”

From a group of 15 national finalists, Laureate award winners are selected by the Richard Ivey School of Business at Western University. In the category of Business Innovation, Professor June Cotte said, “Christian Chia and the OpenRoad Group really distinguished themselves in this category. Engagement with customers in real-time and on social media is the next obvious customer responsiveness innovation. Creating an umbrella brand, and then leveraging it into a lifestyle magazine, seems a particularly powerful approach. Strong revenue growth was achieved, while significant investments were made in an in-house 2.5 year leadership development program, with strong completion rates. These sorts of varied innovations are likely at the heart of why Christian was named Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year and why the OpenRoad Group is one of the Globe and Mail’s Top 50 Canadian Employers.”

Mr. Chia was notified of his award via a personal telephone call from Chairman MacPhee. Upon hearing the news, Mr. Chia said “It’s truly an honour; my organization is going to be ecstatic. There are many, many qualified and deserving dealers to win the Laureate award. I am joining an esteemed group of dealers, but also people who are near and dear to me. A lot of organizations focus on employees and we follow that credo. We look after our people and they look after our customers. We want to change the stigma that remains associated with our industry.”

The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association is the voice of the new car and truck dealers in Canada, with headquarters in Markham, Ontario and a government relations office in Ottawa. Its wide-ranging mandate includes helping member dealers to improve their overall operations and to implement initiatives that strengthen the relationship between new car and truck dealers and the members of the communities they serve.

For more information contact:

Ben Lovie
Director of Marketing
OpenRoad Auto Group ltd
ben.lovie@openroadautogroup.com
mobile: 778 580 5765

OpenRoad Lexus Richmond Grand Opening Video Coverage

Chris Eastwood on October 4, 2011

Enjoy our video coverage:
 

OpenRoad Lexus Richmond officially opened the doors to its new $18 million dealership, designed to be as luxurious as it is sustainable.

Located at 5631 Parkwood Way in Richmond, B.C., the almost 70,000 square foot facility – featuring the largest indoor showroom in Canada – achieved LEED® Silver Certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) Green Building Rating System.

With over 1100 in attendance in Lexus’ flagship dealership in Canada, guests enjoyed tastings by World renowned chef Tojo while being served drinks by Sapparo & Mission Hill.  With such an extravagant facility, entertainment was definitely up to par with the building with fire breathers, a live jazz band, a Taiko performance, authentic Japanese Art, and the revving of the legendary Lexus LFA engine by OpenRoad’s CEO, Christian Chia.

For pictures & event coverage of this event:
http://go.orag.co/lexus_grand_opening

OpenRoad Auto Group – Top 50 Best Employers

Chris Eastwood on November 1, 2010


Ranked 7th in the annual national study of best places to work

Vancouver, BC  – OpenRoad Auto Group announces it has been named in the Top 10 of Aon Hewitt’s 2012 Best Employers in Canada list. This is the third year that OpenRoad Auto Group has been awarded top placement, and is recognized among leading businesses including Cisco Canada, WestJet, McDonald’s, FedEx, and Delta Hotels & Resorts. Organizations were selected as Best Employers based on survey responses from more than one hundred thousand Canadian employees.

“I am very proud of the fact that OpenRoad has once again made the list of Canada’s 50 Best Employers, and thank our employees for their vote of confidence in our workplace,” said Christian Chia, CEO of OpenRoad Auto Group. “What we have accomplished together, is making our company a truly unique place to work and we are committed to build this community even stronger by keeping open dialogue with our employees to foster growth as a company and as a family.”

At the core of the award selection is employee engagement, which is driven by leadership, rewards, workplace culture and values, productivity and the support of performance and development. The average engagement score for the 50 Best Employer organizations was 78 percent. “Those organizations ranked highest on the list have employee engagement of close to 90 percent,” said Neil Crawford, Aon Hewitt’s leader of the Best Employers in Canada study. “That’s an impressive accomplishment, particularly now when many parts of the Canadian economy are showing signs of recovery and employee attraction and retention is becoming more challenging.”

For Christian Chia, CEO of OpenRoad Auto Group, which operates ten car dealerships selling 9 import brands – Lexus, Toyota, Scion, Audi, BMW, MINI, Honda, Mazda, and Hyundai – in the Vancouver metro area, focusing on people practices is critical to fostering an environment of innovation. Paving the road for innovation in the automotive industry, OpenRoad Auto Group has created a series of “climate” or cultural goals that contribute to their uniqueness.

Chia continues, “90 percent of the business model is the same from one dealership to the other. We have to work within that 10 percent where we can make a difference. We have to differentiate ourselves by offering the best service provision, and that means the quality of our people.”