CELEBRATING 25 YEARS IN BUSINESS, LEADING DMS PROVIDER PBS SYSTEMS GROUP HAS TAKEN A UNIQUE APPROACH TO THE INDUSTRY SINCE DAY ONE
Windows-based system has proved intuitive and easy to use
Today, it’s hard to imagine there was a time when the business office in the dealership didn’t rely on computer technology, a time when it was extremely difficult to add extended warranty or insurance to a vehicle payment, but there was.
Back in the 1980s, Dave Bradley was aware of the problem this presented. Bradley, who was working for Monroe Systems at the time, put together an idea of using an IBM personal computer and IBM Selectric typewriter to calculate life and disability insurance payments into vehicle finance contracts. It was a revolutionary concept and like many such ideas was initially greeted with skepticism.
Undeterred, Bradley chose to persist with his idea, forming PBS (originally an acronym for Profit Building Solutions) in Calgary in 1988. The strategy proved to be a good move and the product — a simple, highly effective solution that could perform complex calculations quickly and was easily deployed in dealership business offices — became an attractive proposition for auto retailers. “By 1993, we had over 1,200 dealers onboard and over 50 per cent of the new cars sold in Canada were financed using our software,” says Bradley.
By this time, the F&I business had grown to become an increasingly important aspect of dealer operations and PBS had carved out a reputation for delivering superior results.
Dave Bradley
BRANCHING OUT
And yet, despite the success in the F&I sphere, as Bradley notes, the competition doesn’t stand still. To build on a solid foundation meant exploring new options, essentially getting into the DMS business. “You have a time frame,” he says. “We looked at the traditional competitors in DMS and nobody wanted to integrate with us, so we decided to get into their business.”
To facilitate its entry, PBS acquired three smaller DMS providers in Ontario, DCS (Ottawa), Drive Systems/Conexsys (Toronto) and Vantage Systems (North Bay). “This gave us a product, but more importantly customers and experienced staff,” says Lynn McNeill, senior vice-president PBS Systems Group Inc.
This foundation helped lay the groundwork for the industry’s first Windows-based DMS, which PBS launched in 1996. “Everybody thought we were crazy,” says Bradley “but we got some really good adoption.”
A staged approach saw a Windows based-F&I suite launch first, followed by accounting and then service department systems. By the end of the decade, the new PBS system had been widely embraced by dealers, praised for its intuitive navigation and ease of use compared to what was available on the market. “It was the right product at the right time,” says McNeill “and it really took off.”
Today, PBS has dealer clients in Canada, the U.S, and also the Caribbean, targeting its customers geographically in order to provide the most effective service it can.
ARISTO: THE NEXT GENERATION
With the competition not slowing down and the pace of technology advancing, PBS felt that the time had come to create a next-generation DMS. Capitalizing on its existing customer base, this was more of an evolution than revolution.
“We came to the conclusion that what we had wouldn’t carry us long term,” says Bradley “so in 2004 we began building our Aristo product.” Aristo, which takes its name from the Greek word meaning “the end of evolution,” was designed from the outset to centre around the customer. “It is like wrapping a DMS around a CRM system,” says Bradley.
Lynn McNeill
With Aristo, all staff within the dealership, no matter which department they work in, have instant access to each and every customer, enabling the store to identify them and then facilitate the customer experience to each one. “If you can work with a customer and understand that they have a service appointment tomorrow when you are trying to sell them a car, you will retain that customer longer,” says Lynn McNeill.
Another advantage of Aristo is that it is scalable, with dealerships ranging from single operator stores selling 300 cars a year, to mega dealers handling 8,000 units or more, to multi-franchise groups with unique consolidation needs.
Considering how daunting changing DMS providers can be for most dealers, PBS has placed a lot of emphasis, not only in creating one that’s simple to understand and operate, but one that’s also simple to purchase. “When we took our original DMS to market,” says McNeill our approach was to do a simple contract and pricing model, a bit like the original Saturn brand model for General Motors — reasonable costs with no surprises.” Today, that same approach extends to Aristo.
The strategy has served PBS well, to the point in fact that besides helping dealers retain their customers, PBS also boasts an enviable track record in terms of retention among its own dealer clients.
