HELSINKI - After the preparations, announced last year, summarized in substance with the creation of a company issuing from the FCA group, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles, registered in Finland following the decision to operate directly, rather than through an importer, in the Baltic country, Fiat has set up his base of operations in Vantaa, satellite city of Helsinki, in theTechnopolis business center.
Then, a little less than a century after the first commercial activities of Fiat in Finland, the so-called "Project Scandinavia" starts to operate at full capacity, entrusted to the expert hands of the engineer Alessio Castelli, 42, with a long experience in Fiat, which has added to its responsibility for the area of Sweden and Denmark, Finland also.

Q - What arethe motivations of the entrance direct operational in Finland?

Castelli

FIAT, or better Fiat Group Automobiles Finland Oy. enters in Finland for very the first time in its history in the first person, and with its own facility, after a series of different distributors and situations, not all positive, to take full advantage of the good prospects of success that we expect, largely tied to new programs for the last models of jeeps and coming Alfa Romeo models. The decision to take direct action was also influenced by our experience in Sweden, where we found more or less the same situation, with initial volume sales rather low, but now we're doubling it. Our goal is then to repeat the same challenge successfully implemented in Sweden.

We see good potential with regard to the jeep, also because of the characteristics of the country, and the jeep, which in the world has sold one million units last year, will be the flagship product for years to come.

 Q.Which are thefirst implemented steps?

Castelli

 - As for the launch on the Finnish market, and the staff that supports us, we started hiring Mr. Simo Rosvall, responsible for business operations, which is known in the industry with a long experience and knowledge of the market, former general manager of a cars’ distributor here in Finland, which will help us in giving substance to our ambitious project, with an initial staff, which currently has six units.

The organization's headquarters is fully operational, except minor details being completed, and also the location near the airport of Helsinki allows us to take full advantage of our needs in terms of logistics.

Q.And what aboutthe commercial prospects?

Castelli

This2015 is a year of 'reconstruction' and launch on this market, recruiting even our dealers whose we have now started with about eight sales points with the goal of reaching the optimal number of twenty.

In 2015we intend to make a debut with the launch of five new models in this market, the new Jeeps Cherokee and Renegade, the new Ducato and, in March-Apri, the new Doblò Cargo and the new 500X, all equipped with the so-called 'cold country kit'suited to the local climate. We are moving now from the commercial point of view also with promotional information, which is very important for Helsinki and its large metropolitan area which, in terms of the market, represents one third of the country.

At this pointintervenes  Simo Rosvall, specifying how the network has at this stage 8 sales’ points and 32 service points to cover all areas of the country, up to Rovaniemi, Lapland. And just in Lapland, in Ivalo, the Jeep Renegade went through a Winter test, at the invitation of specialized magazine TekniikanMaailma using the known Arctic circuit of Test World.

Q. Which areyour strategic objectives?

Castelli

From the strategic point of view, for us the most important goal to be achieved is the consolidation of our presence, with the recruitment of the best possible dealers, beginning to meet the Finnish customers, the start of all operations with the various models: the launch of the aforementioned five models, in one year, in a completely new market for us, is not a walk. Our strategic target is based on three years, when in addition to the above five new models, many other models will be added to our product offering, particularly with Alfa Romeo, to reach 3% of the market share.
Now we are refining the dealers’ network with which we will cooperate closely, and ensuring  they are well motivated in this phase of starting to invest with us wisely and for a common goal.
The response of the existing dealers and potential ones is comforting and we feel that we can act with a network of experienced professionals and professionally trained.

At this point, onnentoivotuksetFiatille (best wishes  toFiat, in Finnish).