By Natesh Muthalan, Senior Consultant, Infosys

As customers move from private ownership to shared services in pursuit of higher convenience options for personal mobility, OEMs and dealers will have to re-think, re-invent, and re-innovate their business models.

To ensure dealers have the tools to meet technology-driven customers’ demands, OEMs must overhaul their Dealer Communication Systems through which the factory and dealers exchange sales, inventory, service, parts, warranty claim, and other sales and operating data.

There is a clear distinction between a DMS and the Dealer Communication System. The DCS is a communication pipeline between the OEM and dealers, and for all things related to the sales and service of vehicles. It helps with all communication, including warranty claims, downloading sales and company information, parts ordering, vehicle customization, etc.

The DCS ensures critical news and information reaches the dealership instantly including part/vehicle recall. It is also used for floating incentive programs and sending targeted messages to specific dealerships. Essentially, it is a centralized method of information exchange between dealers and OEMs, providing consolidated data about sales, spare parts, service, part performance, etc., thus improving the manufacturer’s ability to respond to changing demand. 

Common Challenges Faced by OEMs, Dealers, and Customers:

Customer:

• Inconsistent information and details between the dealer and OEM website
• High customer response time
• Redundant information gathering at multiple applications

The future role of dealers is changing, especially with focused online and marketing initiatives targeting customers based on their locations. Dealers will be working with finance, insurance firms to offer bundled services as subscriptions to customers.

Hence they must embrace the latest trends in the DCS space:

• Use machine learning to predict the customer behavior and attitude towards purchase of new vehicles and predict the attitude towards telematics subscription renewals
• Use customer segmentation and machine learning to provide a better product promotion/offering and effectively manage demand and supply.
• Increase synergy between the OEM and dealer to help with improving sales reporting and the consistency of information
• Enrich the customer’s experience with more vehicle research tools to provide the right information to the customer
• Use an analytics-supported sales strategy and digital marketing to lead to customized customer-centric options hence converting more leads into sales revenue
• Improve the efficiency of the parts supply chain with the stocking the right parts, at the right place, and at the right time
• Use multiple retail sales channel to increase lead generations and reach out to the customer through multiple avenues
• Use remote diagnostics to reduce service time, repair vehicle issues, proactive preventive measures leading to decreased warranty claims/costs and service differentiation

The voice of the dealership must be heard and fulfilled with anytime and anywhere access through multiple devices with high performance, enhanced application security, and real-time data integration.

The future DCS should have the following next-generation features:

1. The new system should support new sales channels across business product lines
2. Real-time interactions – handling transactions across sales, service, and parts in real-time
3. Intelligent feedback recommendations – comprehend feedback from various audiences
4. Enable new integrations – Telematics integrations for handling all lines (e.g. safety, remote diagnostics, location, savings, and security)
5. Mobility on the go – ability to perform core business functionality on the go
6. Next-gen communication: Chats bots for online support, virtual reality for experiencing vehicles remotely, and social collaboration

The entire automotive ecosystem is changing drastically, and the first step for the organization is to assess the maturity level of their DCS.

The assessment must be performed across three key areas:

• Functional – Functional maturity across product lines, functional areas, interfaces including both new/used vehicles.
  – Sales, parts, office, service, finance, marketing, content management, social collaboration, recommendations, mobility on the go, AR/VR
• Non-Functional – System maturity across non-functional requirement parameters for supporting business needs.
  – Performance, scalability, multi-device support, multi-language support, response time, usability, audit, and monitoring.
• Technical – Technical maturity supporting the functional and non-functional needs of the business/users alike.
  – Responsive web design, cloud service, micro services, multi-channel, analytics engine, API support, dynamic monitoring.

To transform for the future, OEMs and dealers must engage and execute a dynamic retail strategy for a systematic journey of providing sophisticated marketing and commerce tools for today’s internet savvy buyers. A standard DCS will be far-fetched, leading the pathway for the next generation DCS, filling the expectations of every stakeholder in the automotive ecosystem.

About the Author

Natesh Muthalan is a Senior Consultant with Infosys and has extensive knowledge in the manufacturing domain especially in the automotive sector related to dealership operations, learning management, and master data management.