The Chrysler Group is on a rebound and is now a de facto surrogate of the Fiat Group. While Fiat may now be its nearest kin, the Auburn Hills, Mich., headquartered automaker would do well to look to Asia, particularly South Korea and especially at Hyundai for inspiration.

Why Hyundai and not Fiat? Well, for one very good reason: Hyundai has found a way to command more market share and to so by giving customers what they want: value and quality in a package they can’t resist. Let’s face it: even after a recent product overhaul for 2011, Chrysler products aren’t offering the same level of excitement found in many Hyundai vehicles. That means Chrysler is operating at a disadvantage and is likely to be eventually overtaken by Hyundai in sales in the U.S. market.

Chrysler can learn many things from Hyundai going forward including the following:

Keep the herd thin – Chrysler has four brands to manage, but Hyundai has just one. That means Hyundai’s overhead is much lower, giving it a pricing and marketing advantage that Chrysler can only dream of. Separating Ram from Dodge was a mistake. Closing out the Chrysler brand and keeping Jeep and Dodge only is the best approach for Chrysler.

Offer an amazing warranty – Hyundai has had an image problem, but managed to overcome it by improving quality. The automaker also backed up its efforts by rolling out an industry best 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty. Suddenly, buyers didn’t have to worry that their cars would fall apart after a few years, knowing that whatever problems were to arise would be backed by Hyundai. Chrysler could use a similar approach to build up buyer confidence. Read the rest of this entry »