Digital Dealer - November 2017 - 21

hired at your dealership
and discover they can't
do their jobs because
your network is too
slow, can you blame
them for becoming frustrated? They could go
work somewhere else
with the necessary support system and make
twice the money.
Modern vehicles are
computerized and 'connected.' The process
of diagnosis and repair
takes more than years
of experience and some
wrench turns. Your
technicians are downloading flash files and
scads of data into their
computers and into vehicles on a daily basis.
For a technician to do
their job efficiently requires huge amounts of
bandwidth. Yet in many
dealerships I still see IT
infrastructures that are
woefully inadequate to
support these every day
activities.
So, what are the IT
tools that your employees need to succeed?
Ultimately, it's all about
speed.
COMPUTERS

When I visit dealerships I often see employees working on PCs
that to me, look like
relics. This is your employees' primary tool on
which they are running
dozens of applications
at any given time.
Without adequate
processing speeds, applications become slug-

gish and cause frustration. If you have any PCs
older than five years, get
rid of them immediately.
A new computer costs
less than a thousand
bucks and will make your
employees more productive and thrilled with the
increased speed.
INTERNET

Do you have a 'small
business' internet connection from your Internet
Service Provider (ISP)?

wireless to handle all of
these devices, your sales
and service applications
get bogged down and
productivity suffers.
Approximately 70 percent of dealerships have
what I refer to as the
"data throughout" level
of wireless. This means
they have approximately
six to 20 enterprise-grade
access nodes throughout
the dealership.
This may be fine for

DO YOU VIEW YOUR
IT EXPENDITURE AS A
COST TO BE CONTAINED
OR AS AN INVESTMENT
THAT ALLOWS YOUR
EMPLOYEES TO BE
SUCCESSFUL? IF IT'S
THE FORMER, YOU
MAY BE AT RISK FOR
EMPLOYEE DEFECTION."
Cable connections are
frequently shared with
residential customers,
which can slow your
business down. Today's
data requirements in a
dealership require an
enterprise-level service
package provided over
fiber optics. Also, be sure
you have resiliency in the
form of a backup connection with a separate ISP.
WI-FI

A typical dealership
with 80 to 100 employees now has hundreds
of connected devices. If
you don't have enough

now but dealerships
should be planning for a
level of wireless known
as "location-based." This
level provides wireless
coverage both within the
dealership and across
the entire lot. At this level
technicians can download vehicle computer
software updates outside
of a service bay, freeing
up valuable space for
more profitable customer
pay work.
Location-based wireless requires a minimum
of 25 enterprise-grade
access nodes per store. I

realize this isn't cheap but
it will soon be a requirement, so the sooner you
get prepared, the better.
SWITCHES

Last but certainly not
least, upgrade your
switches. Most dealerships are still running
on 15-year-old switches
that were designed to
support 100 Mbps of data
throughput at any given
time. These switches
are obsolete in today's
work environment. Your
wireless infrastructure
alone requires a minimum
of 300 Mbps throughput,
and all that data must
pass through your switches. Be sure that all of
your switches are 1 Gigabit, which support ten
times the data throughput
of older switches.
Every dealer knows
how important it is to give
employees the tools they
need to succeed. Your IT
infrastructure is the backbone that every other
tool relies on. Investing in
your IT strategy demonstrates to your employees
that you are investing in
their success. Do it, and
then use that fact to help
attract and retain the best
talent.
ERIK NACHBAHR
founded Helion Automotive
Technologies to bring
auto dealerships into the
FAST lane by transforming
their networks into highperformance vehicles for
mission-critical applications.
EMAIL: enachbahr@
heliontechnologies.com.

D I G I TA L D E A L E R . C O M

NOVEMBER 2017

21
http://www.DIGITALDEALER.COM
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Digital Dealer - November 2017
