Digitalization: Where Do I Start in My Dealership?

There is a lot of talk about digitalization in the dealership environment, but it is not usually explained well enough, so the scope and associated benefits are not understood.

A few years ago, digitalization was understood as scanning the papers that piled up in files, but that is now history. Digitalization applies to all areas and processes, not only when the document is “dead” in a file. It is a living tool for managing internal and external processes. More and more, we all send each other information through documents.

In a dealership, digitalization covers all points of view

The customer gets information about their vehicle and about their interaction with the dealership, and therefore better service.

The dealership gets better information about the customer, preferences, better attention, knowledge of incidents…

If we focus on the area of converting “papers” into “digital documents”, there is a lot to do. The good news is that we have tools at our fingertips that help us achieve this goal in a simple way.

“Working with a document digitally is not just saving it, but in the dealership environment great returns are achieved”

Documents in traditional format, the famous “papers”, have the “advantage” of being easy to handle, such as when writing manually, or seeing it on a table to know what we have to do, but those advantages do not compensate for the advantages we obtain by working in a digitalized environment.

With a digital document system we achieve:

• That the same document, and the information it contains, can be consulted by several people at the same time, even in remote locations.
• That it is known where the document is at any time, regardless of which folder or drawer it is in.
• That staff are guided in a simple way so they know how documents should be saved and sent.

Working with a document digitally is not just saving it, but in the dealership environment great returns are achieved if we also use workflow tools, through which company processes are guided and controlled by digitalization tools.

The indiscriminate use of spreadsheets and emails is efficient as long as we maintain a low level of information. However, if we manage mile-long reports or commission and incentive management with them, the disorder ends up producing the same management problems as when working with paper and pen.

From our experience, the ideal for a dealership is to use those tools best suited to its activity that can be found on the market and that combine technical and professional know-how from the sector.

Those tools designed and developed for a specific sector will provide proven solutions, as well as economies of scale, since different customers will benefit from the same developments and therefore can be obtained at more adjusted costs.

Vicente Santonja
IT Process Manager
vicente.santonja@dealerbest.com