Is Technology Eliminating The F&I Manager?, from P&A Magazine.
George Angus examines the every day duties of the F&I manager, and if technology is capable of taking over this role
As a research and process development company, we are constantly looking for new ideas, products, or anything that would be of value to our F&I professionals. There are always plenty of new products, software programs or someone touting the “next big thing” in the F&I world for us to evaluate and share those results with our clients.
In this decade, all the talk is about technology taking over the F&I process in the future. With advent of electronic menus and different versions of software that are designed to do the selling of the F&I products, one might assume it’s just a matter of time before we eliminate the need for those pesky, highly paid, F&I managers. This idea catches the attention of dealers who wonder if they pay those F&I people too much, F&I product providers who would love to be able to control how their product is presented and especially software vendors, (think of how much could they could charge a dealer for that, if it worked).
And so, you hear a lot of talk about it. We are currently working with several software providers to develop their F&I selling tools and tools for service and other related functions. And we have been successful with some ideas of how to use these devices to assist in the F&I process. But before we accept the idea that this technology can replace the F&I manager’s job, we should take a closer look at what this new technology will have to accomplish.
