J.D. Power to exit from Malaysia and rest of ASEAN, to focus only on China and Japan

Market research agency J.D. Power will be shutting down three of its international offices – Singapore, Bangkok and Sydney – as part of its reorganization under its new owner Thoma Bravo LLC, a US-based investment company.

Operations in these three offices will be wound down in stages and by the middle of 2020, J.D. Power will only maintain three offices for the Asian region – Beijing, Shanghai and Tokyo.

As J.D. Power’s businesses in Malaysia are managed out of its Singapore office, the reorganization also means that J.D. Power will exit Malaysia, and cease to have any physical representation in the ASEAN region.

However, the J.D. Power says it will continue to serve clients in the region using digital channels.

Darren Slind, region president South Asia, ASEAN and Oceania, said in a letter to clients – a copy of which was obtained by Australia’s GoAuto - said: “While we are scaling back our physical presence in ASEAN, India, Taiwan and Australia, we are not exiting these important automotive markets. We will continue to have JD Power industry experts available throughout the region as needed on a regular basis.

“In order to maximise the value of our data, analytics and critical industry intelligence, we have made the decision to refocus our work in the region.

“This will mean significant investment in our digital data collection and analysis tools, and a pivot toward areas of growing demand from our clients such as digital retailing, connected vehicle data analytics, vehicle electrification and vehicle automation.

“Throughout our global operations, our modernised data, analytics and workflow capabilities are making it possible to deliver more accurate and meaningful insights faster and more affordably than ever before.

“We feel that now is the optimal time to focus on these tasks in order to bring the value to our clients as quickly as possible,” Mr Slind said.

J.D. Power is best known for its surveys on customer satisfaction, which aren’t limited to just the automotive industry but J.D. Power only became a household name thanks to its close association with Lexus, whose advertisements frequently mention its top rank in J.D. Power surveys.

The company conducts regular surveys of customer satisfaction (sales, after-sales), as well as perceived quality. The results are made public but if a company wants to know specific details on why they are ranked as such and how they can improve, they will have to pay J.D. Power for the information.

Earlier in July, Thomas Bravo purchased J.D. Power from its previous owner McGraw Hill Financial for an undisclosed sum.