Despite the barrage of messages that change is afoot and all around them, most dealers I talked with at the Western Canadian Dealers Summit in Banff, Alta., seemed mostly reassured and confident.
Most dealer conferences in the past decade or so have been filled with “hair on fire” warnings about the imminent demise of the dealer. Speakers have hinted at nefarious plans by a host of players from OEMs, third-party disruptors and companies that don’t even exist yet, but might someday arrive like some futuristic dealer crushing bogeyman.
So, perhaps dealers are just a bit worn out from all the warnings.
Or, perhaps, they recognize that the pace of change hasn’t really hit them as dramatically as many experts have already predicted.
One dealer from rural Alberta wondered aloud if he should even bother adding an electric vehicle recharging station to his facility. He was considering it, but was weighing the costs of installing it versus the number of his “current” customers who might even use it. The short answer is that he of course should as it will be providing a customer experience more and more users (and future customers) will now expect.
Others mused that the changes that are often described at these events seem more applicable to urban dealerships, or even those in the United States than in Canada.
That’s only partly true.
The changes coming to the auto retail industry are inevitable, they just won’t happen at the same pace in every region, and every town. The rural dealers might just have more time to prepare, and they might be able to adapt from the mistakes from their urban counterparts in more hyper competitive marketplaces. But there’s no doubt adaptation is required.
Consider this: to reach 50 million users, it took the telephone 75 years. It took 38 years for radio to reach that many people. It took only 13 years for television to reach that mark, 3.5 years for Facebook, and only 35 days for Angry Birds!
The changes coming to the auto retail industry are inevitable, they just won’t happen at the same pace in every region, and every town.
The article I pulled those stats from, QILeader.com, rightly states that: “It takes us less and less time to adopt new technologies. That means that organizations have less and less time to
adapt themselves to the new technologies.”
The article: “Five signs that your organization is not adapted to our fast pace of change” also points out that the change management tools that many businesses traditionally turn to are themselves outdated and not well-equipped to manage the type of rapid change we are all facing.
So where does this leave car dealers?
Looking for clarity, answers, and assurances from anywhere they can get it including fellow dealers, their industry associations, their OEMs, suppliers, customers, and employees.
The good news is that most dealers I know are resilient, entrepreneurial, and optimistic and more than willing to roll up their sleeves and do the work needed to survive. It’s just that they might need to seriously look at amping up the pace of driving that change through their organizations.
