The Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA) in January launched A Dealer’s Guide to Data & Data Sharing—an extension of its Driving the Road Ahead report, focusing on the importance of data for dealers and its impact on the industry.
“Driving the Road Ahead was a strategic report that looked at a variety of impacts on the auto retail business, and one of them was to recognize the importance of data and data sharing, cybersecurity, and privacy as we go forward,” said Tim Ryan, Vice President and Director of Industry Relations & General Counsel, in an interview with Canadian auto dealer.
“So in thinking about that, I recognized that one of the things that would be helpful for our dealers would be to have a document that talked about it—sort of a general report on digital issues that will impact dealers, and that was the basis for the document that we created,” said Ryan.
The guide aims to not only help dealers better understand their role in responsible data management, but also to offer information around data security, storage and collection, and data breaches, among other things.
Chuck Seguin, President at Seguin Advisory Services, also worked on the report—as he did with the Driving the Road Ahead one. He said CADA asked him to continue on with the new guide, to look at the data perspective and do a deeper dive into data.
“I did the first draft of the report, and my job was to basically look at it from a dealer-industry perspective: what’s the importance of data, why should dealers consider their data, and how could they possibly monetize on that data and all the different things that data is driving,” said Seguin.
Seguin offers the example of the data that dealers collect from their stores—many of them outsource services, which means the data is all over the place. He said from an industry perspective, data is driving the whole change in vehicle design, in vehicle automation, and in customer treatment.
“The online sales, direct-to-consumer, and the whole impact of data on the complete automotive value chain, right from the design of the vehicle all the way through to the use of the vehicle on the road,” said Seguin. “So the whole data thing is a really big issue. It’s sort of like, he who controls the data, wins.”
The report considers why dealers take this seriously, and why it is important to their future that they manage and take control of their data. Seguin said many dealers are aware of the importance of their data, but that there are a number of them who do not have the resources to do anything about it.
“You have to think about where the data is being produced—in a store, or a DMS, which is an outsourced thing, or their CRM system, which is an outsource pulled onto their DMS, and also inventory management (so websites),” said Seguin. “All those things are done by third parties. (Dealers) don’t control any of that stuff. They hire it out.”
He said many of the larger groups do much of this in-house and are better able to handle their data. But from a single-point dealer perspective, he said it is difficult for them to have the in-house resources to deal with everything. And for the dealers that do have the resources, not everyone is using their data in a productive way.
Seguin said the report is broken down into steps to try and make all the information more digestible—such as gathering, storing, and protecting information, and then managing, analyzing, and monetizing. The report also touches on data sharing arrangements (where the data is going, who is asking for the data, and what sort of protection and assurances dealers might have).
“I worked closely with Tim Ryan on this, and we put together a pretty comprehensive guide that covers a whole bunch of different things that dealers should consider,” said Seguin. “And even if they do half of this, they’re going to be way ahead from where they are today. Security is critical and it’s also about choosing your partners wisely and carefully.”
He said the guide also includes information about what employees should be doing, and where security breaches can happen, along with email protocols and what dealers can do to better protect their business.
Dealers members can download the guide on the CADA website.
