Automotive News - December 18, 2017 - Best Practices Supplement - A6

THE JUDGING

Selecting winners is a process
that's fair to all, no matter
the dealer's size or location

D

O THE MATH: OF THE 16,500
members of NADA, only one is
named TIME Dealer of the Year. Is the
road to that recognition deliberate,
data-driven, detailed and, in the end,
dispassionate?
We'll let you be the judge.
Now in its 49th year, the TIME
Dealer of the Year Award recognizes the
nation's most successful auto dealers
who also demonstrate a long-standing
commitment to community service
through fundraising and volunteering in
their hometowns and around the world.
The awards are sponsored exclusively by
Ally and presented in cooperation with
NADA.
"Dealers take great pride in our
businesses and our communities," said
Mark Scarpelli, 2017 NADA chairman.
"To be recognized with a nomination for
the TIME Dealer of the Year Award is a
great honor."
From the initial list of 47 nominees
this year, finalists will be announced for
each of the four regions. Then one will

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be named the 2018 TIME Dealer of the
Year at the NADA Show this spring.
The process to find that one dealer
began this past summer, when TIME
and Ally invited dealer associations
in all 50 states to nominate worthy
members. If the list of past winners is
a measurement, the associations take
the competition and the prestige of the
honor seriously.
"Dealers who rise to the top in our
industry owe much of their success to
the investments that they make in their
communities. That's what I look for when
nominating a dealer for the award,"
says Bob Glaser, president of the North
Carolina Automobile Dealers Association.
In selecting a worthy dealer to
nominate, the associations look for
certain criteria, including being a
franchised new-car dealer, the operating
head of the dealership with an active
presence in the business and an active
member of their dealer association.
Once the nominees from the various
dealer associations have been compiled

into a single list, it's sent to a panel of
four judges recruited from the faculty
of the Tauber Institute for Global
Operations at the University of Michigan.
The list is first placed in the hands
of the associate director of the Tauber
Institute, Jonathan Grice. What he gets
is more than a list of dealer names.
He gets data-about financial and
operational performance as well as
information regarding the dealer's
community involvement. It's Grice's task
to crunch and digest it all to create the
measurements and summaries for the
judging panel.
Besides biographical information
and a resume of community service
efforts submitted by each dealer, the
judging materials include metrics on
customer service and satisfaction as
well as information regarding employee
development initiatives to ensure that
nominated dealers are high-performing
businesses as well as leaders in their
communities, Grice says.
Then for the next month, the judges
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