I'm finishing up a three day automotive ebusiness conference, Digital
Dealer 8, where there was quite a bit of talk on open source
(wordpress etc) and how dealers could leverage that to reduce their
expenses (or create a higher ROI by shifting dollars). This got me thinking. Is this even a possibility for most in the short term? You see, while the intent for the attendees is to succeed, it is the
dealer who allows this to not happen. The conference was full of ethusiastic, qualified automotive ebusiness
professionals. Which was great. However, the target audience was few
and far between. What I mean is the dealer. The one who signs the checks. Until we can
make them understand the vaule of eAnything in their business what
happens is the information the attendees harvested will, most likely,
never get fully implemented. Or worse yet, get implemented wrong. At the end if the day these people need to sell cars. They have
families. Those familes appreciate dinner and clothes and electricity
and the occasional vacation. Until owners can be shown the value of having someone managing all
this, and paying them to do so, nothing will change at the retail level. So how can we even think dealers can manage open source in house when
due to current dealership enviroments most can't keep consistent
processes in place? Now don't get me wrong, there are dealers, mostly multipoint or larger
dealer group, that have seen the value and can do this. These are run
more like a corporation with dedicated people in all aspects of the
business. They don't pay thier office personell or IT team on how many
units they sold so the focus is on what their jobs are. Dealers need to seriously consider hiring, and paying to value, an
alternative marketing manager or online manager or (insert title here)
who is paid to make this happen. Only then can things like open source platforms enhance a dealers
bottom line.
Dealer 8, where there was quite a bit of talk on open source
(wordpress etc) and how dealers could leverage that to reduce their
expenses (or create a higher ROI by shifting dollars). This got me thinking. Is this even a possibility for most in the short term? You see, while the intent for the attendees is to succeed, it is the
dealer who allows this to not happen. The conference was full of ethusiastic, qualified automotive ebusiness
professionals. Which was great. However, the target audience was few
and far between. What I mean is the dealer. The one who signs the checks. Until we can
make them understand the vaule of eAnything in their business what
happens is the information the attendees harvested will, most likely,
never get fully implemented. Or worse yet, get implemented wrong. At the end if the day these people need to sell cars. They have
families. Those familes appreciate dinner and clothes and electricity
and the occasional vacation. Until owners can be shown the value of having someone managing all
this, and paying them to do so, nothing will change at the retail level. So how can we even think dealers can manage open source in house when
due to current dealership enviroments most can't keep consistent
processes in place? Now don't get me wrong, there are dealers, mostly multipoint or larger
dealer group, that have seen the value and can do this. These are run
more like a corporation with dedicated people in all aspects of the
business. They don't pay thier office personell or IT team on how many
units they sold so the focus is on what their jobs are. Dealers need to seriously consider hiring, and paying to value, an
alternative marketing manager or online manager or (insert title here)
who is paid to make this happen. Only then can things like open source platforms enhance a dealers
bottom line.
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