Standalone IT systems confining dealers to information overload

25 July 2007

 

Dealers adopting standalone IT systems to handle the full range of departmental and manufacturer requirements are finding themselves in management information overload, says dealer management systems specialist Pinewood.

 

Because these systems are rarely capable of interfacing with each other or with core DMS systems, dealers are left with a mass of disjointed information and find it difficult to take a consolidated view of what is happening in their dealership.

 

Neville Briggs, MD of Pinewood said: "There are many different types of standalone IT and e-commerce systems covering areas such as sales, CRM and used cars that have come onto the market in recent years. As standalone systems, a fair number of them are good, and a number of dealers have adopted them.

 

"However, if you start running two or three of these systems, you can soon find yourself in IT hell as none of the systems can talk to anything else. It's like being stuck in information Babel.

 

"We are coming across dealerships where the approach to IT becomes so disjointed that dealer principals are forced to take information from a number of different systems and try to piece it together to gain the bigger picture of what is happening in their dealership.  This is really not that easy and becomes very time consuming."

 

Briggs added that dealers had often adopted these standalone systems due to frustration at shortcomings in the more traditional DMS systems.

 

He explained: "There were some areas, such as CRM, where DMS systems had fallen behind the needs of dealers in past years and this created a gap in the market for standalone systems.

 

"However, some of the best DMS systems using the very latest technology like our Pinnacle DMS can now do everything that the standalone systems do and frequently a lot more as all the information is integrated. Certainly, we have been successful in convincing dealers to take out some of their piecemeal IT systems and install our Pinnacle DMS product in recent months, especially when it is clear how this CRM information can be used by all departments within the dealership instead of just the sales department.

 

"The main advantage of this, of course, is that dealers can see at a glance exactly what is happening across their whole dealership, departmentally or in the case of a multi-site group, within certain retail sites.  Information from all parts of the dealership is completely integrated, easily consolidated and available instantly as reports.”

 

 

For further details please contact Simon Wells at
Paperchase Public Relations on 01283 711311
or e-mail simon@paperchasepr.co.uk