Speculation on the future – somewhat frightening

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Microsoft is continuously brought up, but Microsoft is years (10-15 years) away from coming on the scene. They are so far away, they aren't even worth mentioning.

Lao - have you ever heard of the Blue Oval? Aside from it being Ford's logo it was also a reinvention scheme they employed. The idea behind the Blue Oval was to cut the dealer out of the picture. Ford owned and operated a few dealerships, thus selling directly to the customer. Ford failed in this attempt because they interpreted the customers wrong and had trouble competing with other dealers. I was not in the sales department when it happened, but that is what I have been told about it in a nutshell.

I am not against our manufacturers, but I am a bit weary of their forceful involvement in a world they do not fully understand. They have hit it right a few times doing this type of thing in the past, but I still remain skeptical. It is all rumor at this point.

To answer your last question Lao, I'd love to see OEM's monitor CRM's. I have to throw some stings on that statement though. I'd love to see OEM's monitor CRM's if:

1. Offered bonuses based on good results (example: travel incentives for GM's when their store completes all one on ones for a quarter)
2. Dealership's Internet department has an eight minute response time, so they get more leads
3. Activities are punished and rewarded

The entire CRM/ILM monitoring would need to be a give/take scenario with the underlying goal being to push more metal over the curb. I'd love that! If it is a way to turn dealerships into chain-organizations, then I'm not on board.

 

[Lao Shi]

I have spoken with Microsoft a number of times over the past year on their solution and I am a Microsoft Partner. They are not that far away. They will be in Beta shortly, maybe by 2nd quarter 08 in test markets.

There is a Chinese phrase roughly translated: If we always do what we have always done we will always get what we have always got.

We should always be willing to look at something new.

 

[Alex Snyder (blog)]

Lao, I do not wish to have a posting argument with you over Microsoft. We (my dealership) are partners with them as well, and we believe Microsoft has a long way to go before they're ready to offer something as stable as ADP or Reynolds & Reynolds on the DMS side. They do have some other tools that look more promising, but at the end of the day it is going to boil down to DMS.

As far as the other portion of this topic goes, you're absolutely right. One should not be afraid of change. However, one can always be critical of the prospect.

A bit of good news:

I heard Toyota is going to make the list of CRM/ILM's very long. Their intentions are not to limit dealer selection, but to protect dealers from some of the smaller companies who can really disrupt business. As usual Toyota is thinking ahead, but Toyota was never my concern. I'm worried about some of the other manufacturers who might not have such a long list.

 

[daybreak]

LOL. Reynolds and ADP will always be restricted in what functionality they can provide. They are using 19 century technology to tackle 21 century problems. Dealers are so busy with putting out fires everyday that they will never make the decision to switch over to another system. Most of the auto dealer business is short sighted. What have you done for me lately? Sales and Service revenues are counted daily and monthly and management's mood swings are dependent on the two. There us has to be an external factor pushing for a sudden change. It seems that dealers or for that matter anyone working for them want to do the least amount of work for the most amount of money and the result is that the auto dealers are perhaps the most inefficient sector of our economy. The auto industry is going through major changes. They will never sell 17 million cars a year again and cars are becoming more reliable. I predict Reynolds goes out of business and ADP switches over to ORacle or SQL. The limitation my friends is all in the databases.