Posts Tagged automobile dealers
Award Winning Dealerships
Today’s automobile dealership is a complex business. Management faces daunting challenges to operate sales, finance, fixed assets, human resources, inventory and regulatory requirements successfully. Smart executives take advantage of an ever-increasing variety of products and services made available to them by suppliers specializing in specific areas of expertise such as sales training, finance, human resources, security, loss prevention, insurance, and specialty equipment.
Even with all of the energy now being devoted to keeping a dealership running smoothly there are still some areas of day to day operations for which the appropriate solution, product or consultant has not yet been found. One such area is the use and control of dealer demo tags, a statutory requirement in most states, and long regarded by most dealers as a problem without any good solution.
Efforts have been made over the years by individual dealers to govern demo tags in a variety of manners ranging from:
Furnishing every salesperson with an never ending supply of tags in order to ensure that the unavailability of a demo tag does not compromise the continuity of the communication established between a salesperson and their customer. This solution results in the dealership owning far more demo tags than necessary. The dealer incurs higher acquisition and insurance costs, greater management requirements and added liability exposure. These are issues that managers as well as financial and insurance consultants find troublesome.Requiring salespeople to sign demo tags out and in, which, while reducing the overall number of tags required (a plus for managers, financial and insurance people) interferes with the flow of the sale and requires the time and attention of an employee. Signing tags out and in takes time that should and could be used more productively. Further, this method, as many dealers are finding out when doing dealer tag inventory checks, is not a foolproof system for controlling use and access to dealer tags.
Some dealers believe that by charging a large deposit to the salesperson the tag will not be abused or lost. However, a large deposit virtually insures that a prompt lost or theft report, which limits the dealer’s liability, is less likely to be made. Until a report is made, the liability associated with that demo tag remains with the dealer and not the person using or possessing the tag. Prompt reporting of lost or stolen tags is a very big issue with insurance providers.
While the problem of demo tag control appears intractable, there are solutions. The solutions take the form of dealer demo tag control systems and there are a number of providers in the market today.
One such provider is M-Tech, a company that is specializing in dealer demo tag control systems. M-Tech manufactures and markets the Securitag System. This “Smart Box” has been solving demo tag access control problems for nearly twenty years.
M-Tech’s biggest supporters are the dealers, managers and salespeople using the product. It is gratifying to be given such a vote of confidence.
Access Control Systems (ACS) and Your Dealership
Posted by Bernard Boulé in Opinion, WM 30 on April 1st, 2009
Reading through “Trade Publications” as I do on a regular basis I cannot help but think that the Automobile Dealership Business (ADB) has become technologically as complex and consequently as acronym ridden as the fields of engineering, aviation or the military. In which, you need to know the meanings of what seems like hundreds of Upper Case Letter Groupings (UCLG) in order to understand what is being discussed in any particular article. To make matters worse, it seems that anyone can add to the acronym body at anytime without warning or prior notification, so I was not surprised when I discovered that the Field Of Endeavor (FOE) in which I have been working for the past 20 years, the technology of Access Control Systems, has been “acronymized” as (ACS) technology.
By now, you are beginning to wonder what any of this has to do with you and your dealership’s day-to-day operations and the answer is simple:
- Increased Profitability
- Improved Security
- Streamlined Sales
- Increased Management Efficiency
- Reduced Overhead
- Lower Liability Exposure and perhaps even Lower Insurance Costs.
All of the above benefits can be realized through the utilization of ACS Technology. You may be wondering how ACS technology even fits into the dealership environment. Your question probably is: ‘ How does this apply to me and to my dealership?’ In response to this question I would say every dealership, regardless of its size or location needs to employ some type or types of ACS to limit access to everything from the shop supplies to the cash drawer. After all, you wouldn’t leave your cash drawer open exposing its contents to all of your employees and customers would you? So why would you leave your other assets like specialty tools, inventory, inventory keys, dealer tags or office supplies exposed? They are all valuable assets requiring some type of access control to make certain that only the persons authorized to have access to them actually have that access.
You probably already have some type of Access Control Systems at work in your dealership such as cash registers, locked tool rooms or secure office supply storage. You may even have a fenced and gated lot or lots, which limits access to your inventory. This is rudimentary ACS Technology working for you. Some of this may be manually controlled in which case it would probably require the time and attention of a manager or a specifically assigned employee and likely does not produce accurate records of access usage. Some may be automated, eliminating the need for direct supervision, and they may produce reliable access usage reports. The latter is the direction ACS Technology is heading today. Dealerships should be taking advantage of this emerging technology to control access to assets such as: inventory keys and dealer demo tags. Two areas of constant concern to dealers and managers everywhere. There are good, proven, reliable and affordable ACS specially designed to deal with these concerns.
With technology advancing at such a rapid pace now is the best time to jump in and find out exactly how ACS technology can benefit your dealership.
Security In and Around Your Dealership
Posted by Bernard Boulé in How To, Opinion on March 30th, 2009
- How important is it to you the dealer?
- How important is it to your managers and staff?
- How important is it to people who want to take advantage of you and your business?
- How important should it be?
Above are four questions that every automobile dealership, large or small, publicly owned or private, single dealership or member of a group of dealerships, even mega dealerships, should be working on, hard and fast, to find answers for. The fate of the entire automobile retail industry may depend on how serious today’s Automobile Dealers perceive the whole issue of security to be. We should be able to learn from the mistakes and shortcomings of others. Let’s take the airline industry as an example. In that industry there was a recognized need for security that had been established over a long period of time resulting from incidences of people taking advantage of low or non-existent security measures. The industry responded, raising the level of security by implementing security checks of people boarding aircraft as well as their baggage and cargo. However, it was common knowledge that security levels were not uniform throughout the industry and that common knowledge was taken advantage of with disastrous results, which we are all well aware of.
Today, automobile dealerships are large business operations, not unlike the airlines, with hundreds of employees selling millions of dollars worth of product every year. The pressure is on to perform, meet goals, maintain growth and stay competitive. Often times, for upper level management, the business of operating an automobile dealership is more involved with dealings with the factory, the banks, the insurance industry, state and local regulatory agencies and a host of other business related distractions than it is with the business of selling cars and trucks. The thousands of Dealer Principals who operate their own stores either have to allocate a disproportionate percentage of their time and energy to administrative tasks or delegate those responsibilities to various managers.
Regardless of your particular situation, in the day-to-day business of doing business, important issues, which do not have near term deadlines, tend to be left off from meeting agendas in deference of more pressing matters. This is normal. We all understand that time in meetings is precious; the critical issues are dealt with, while items considered to be less critical are deferred to subsequent meetings, or given to committees to evaluate and report on later. From experience we also know that this committee work often remains uncompleted from meeting to meeting. Committee members usually have other responsibilities, which of necessity take priority, and they only work on committee matters when time permits. The truth is that if you have not actually taken the issue of dealership security and assigned a high priority to it, you will likely never actually deal with it. The sheer scope and complexity of the matter virtually guarantees that. The result will likely be an ineffectual, uncoordinated collection of antiquated equipment, practices, policies and procedures, which will leave you and your business virtually unprotected.
In today’s world of shady business practices, color coded terrorism threat level indicators and federally mandated security measures for some industries, the issue of security in, of and around your dealership should now be very close to the top of your list of priorities. In virtually all of the dealer interviews I have read recently when the dealer is asked to what he/she attributes the success of their business, the response is:
- Dealing honestly with their customers and employees.
- Up-to-date training for sales and management personnel.
- Attention to business practices and procedures.
We all know that it is of paramount importance to deal honestly with our customers and employees. No business will survive for very long if they do not follow this advice. Most dealers have come to the realization that a well trained sales and management team will make more sales than untrained uncoordinated salespeople and managers. However, some dealers have not yet come to the conclusion that they need to up-date and in some cases change or improve some or all of their old business practices and procedures. They are still attempting to operate their dealership the same way they did it 10, 20 or more years ago. We all know that ‘the times they are a changin,’and we have to change with them or we’ll be left behind.
One of the changes all dealers need to be making today is a serious revision of the security systems, practices and procedures used in and around the dealership. Dealers actually need to encourage each other to take these steps, for the good of the automobile retail industry as a whole. The cost of taking the initiative and implementing adequate security systems and procedures to protect all aspects of the business, while not insignificant, is likely not as high as would be the cost of complying with some form of federally mandated security requirements. Just ask any airline executive. Such federal mandates would likely be the result if the assets of an automobile dealership were utilized in some sort of incident like what we saw in Oklahoma or more recently in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon.
Decisions to make the kinds of commitments to security systems, practices and procedures that will be required to keep your dealership and it’s assets safe, secure and profitable will not happen by accident. You will have to be proactive, ‘take the bull by the horns’! Make it happen!
So, the answers to the four questions regarding how important security in and around the dealership should be:
- For you the dealer; Top priority. Urgent.
- For your personnel and management; High priority. Very important for the continued success of the dealership.
- The level of security at your dealership is the most important factor in their planning and decision making in so far as your dealership is concerned.
- There is probably nothing more important that you can do today, for the future of your dealership and the automobile retail industry, than to make certain that you have done everything within your power to ascertain that you have adequate security systems, practices and procedures in place and functioning.
Who Needs Dealer Plate Control?
Posted by Bernard Boulé in Opinion on March 17th, 2009
I’ve just returned from what you might call a whirlwind tour of the Eastern Seaboard of the U.S. A trip from the Canadian border to the southern part of Florida and back in 10 days. During that brief time I was able to visit with some of the automobile dealers along my route and I certainly saw the facilities of hundreds more. Some very impressive installations to be sure!
On a trip like this by car, in my case a very nice 4X4 crew cab pick-up truck (I prefer trucks), one has a lot of time to think. I spent that driving time thinking about you dealers and your need for dealer demo plate control. I looked at the beautiful stores knowing that they were at risk with every dealer demo plate that was out on the road because as in a line paraphrased from an insurance industry publication, “A demo plate represents the entire assets of the dealership when it is on the road.” I was also comforted by seeing many whose names were very familiar to me knowing that they were using a demo plate control system that significantly reduced their liability exposure. I wondered how I could convince each and every one of you, large and small, that you need to have some form of demo plate control for your own protection. Certainly, if you all decided to purchase the product that my company manufactures it would be very good for my business, but in the overall scheme of things if every dealership had some form of demo plate security and control system it would be even better for the automobile retail business.
Did you know that 70% of all money paid out by the insurers of automobile dealerships is directly related to claims arising from the use of demos? If something could be done to reduce the amount of money paid out by insurers, costs would surely come down as would risk. Well, something can be done. Every dealership, regardless of size, or location, regardless of state requirement or regulation, needs to implement some form of reliable, proven and effective dealer plate security and control system. There should be industry standards for such equipment. Industry experts should be working with state and national dealer associations and insurance industry consultants should establish these standards. With these standards in place, dealers could purchase dealer plate control systems and equipment with confidence, knowing that the system met at least minimum security and control requirements.
I’m ready to get to work on this to improve security and reduce risk all across the nation. It’s not a small job and will doubtless require a great deal of time and effort but I’m convinced that the result will be worth the effort. Dealers will be able to profit from reduced costs and improved efficiency. I fear it will take a long time to get the work of creating industry standards done so I would suggest that you not put off securing your plates while you wait for the standards to be established. Every dealer already knows what is required and with a little effort can verify the capabilities of the few offerings presently on the market. I would recommend that you check them all or seek the endorsement of a dealer you know who is using a product you are interested in. Who needs dealer demo plate control? You all do.
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