1st NADA so I have no reference, but it was eye-opening for the folks I brought from Vonage with me.
Our team often works in a horizontal nature understanding use cases, not industries. I'm glad I made a point of and got the support to focus specifically on Automotive.
@craigh is absolutely right that there is a consolidation of vendors versus a couple years ago. I think it's good and bad. Good, platforms are opening up and partnering to solve for a better experience. Bad, some may be taking shortcuts and slapping a "integrated" tag on the partnership to keep up.
In the integration trend, there seems to be a hesitation to leveraging parts of the retail journey one could or should own...namely, data activation (or communication).
The current focus is that either you supply the data or you supply the communication. In reality, all have a part to play there.
For those currently supplying the communication...they have some housekeeping to do under the hood. Platforms using SMS or Voice have tightly bound themselves to one provider and have felt the pain of that decision. Now the market has shifted and they have some work to do in order to be adaptive to the unknown.
In general, I feel optimistic that Automotive is exercising its entrepreneurial spirit to innovate, share, and improve.
Came back with a ton to work with names large and small. We'll be back in New Orleans. Looking forward to what comes between now and then.