Shift Magazine - June 3, 2019 - 12

Most dealership groups
have sufficient data, but
it's what you do with it.

DEVIN DALY:
Websites should be
more like Amazon's.

BILL FEINSTEIN:
Aim to serve
people quickly.

Brian Bates, Holman Enterprises

"What I want to do is provide really a
relevant experience and a somewhat customized experience to get the consumer
what they want fairly quickly," he said.
While big data can seem mysterious
and new, dealers have been using it in at
least a basic way for quite a while.
Early this decade, when customers
came into the service drive, Feinstein
said, dealership personnel could pull their
data to see, for example, that the person
drove 18,000 miles in the first year of a
12,000-miles-per-year lease. "So in a lot
of areas, dealers are using data and just
may not realize it," he said.

TRACKING VEHICLES

BRIAN BATES:
Savvy dealers will
add value with data.

shift * june 2019

Some dealers are using big-data tools to
keep better track of their inventory.
Holman Enterprises, a New Jerseybased group of transportation-related
companies, has invested heavily in using
data. Along with Holman Automotive, its
dealership group with two dozen rooftops
in eight states, it runs ARI, a fleet-services
company that manages 1.8 million vehicles
around the world for industries ranging
from food to oil.
A key to the fleet-management business is a telematics device called Lynkd
that tracks a vehicle's location and status.

Holman is working to develop a use for it
at dealerships.
Dealers would know, for example,
when a vehicle's battery is low as well
as exactly where it is on the lot - or
anywhere - said Brian Bates, who oversees the dealership operations as CEO of
Holman's consumer-services business.
If customers have loaner vehicles while
their cars are being serviced, the dealer
can determine when the vehicle is within
a few miles of the store and ensure that
the customer's car is ready.
The efforts are positioning the company
for transportation's evolution, Bates said.
"This fleet-management expertise will
morph and move its way into that retail
customer base," he said. "As the product
changes and we move to more electrification or autonomous or ride-share, ridehail ... that fleet-management infrastructure is going to be a fundamental basis of
support for that retail customer."
Even though Holman is still developing
Lynkd for the retail business, it is taking
orders from dealers.

TRACKING RIVALS

Data can also be used to keep an eye on
the competition. Sometimes that data is
even hiding in plain sight.

Shift Magazine - June 3, 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Shift Magazine - June 3, 2019