Dealer Management Weekly Inteview with Lon Leneve | Compli.com

Dealer Management Weekly Inteview with Lon Leneve

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Article: Dealer Management Weekly Inteview with Lon Leneve

Article Date: Friday, May 7, 2010

Article Source: Automotive Information Network

Lon In Dealer Management Weekly.pdf

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Interview with Lon Leneve

What do you see going on in the marketplace right now overall, including compliance?

What we are seeing and what we are also hearing here at the NADA Convention is that there is a cautious optimism that the market is returning and that dealers are pretty well positioned both from an infrastructure perspective and a personnel perspective to reap the benefits if the top line can start growing again. Service departments have been doing quite well. There is cautious optimism that we will start to see some increase on the unit sales. I even heard as much as 12.5 million units this year, with the range being 11.5 and 12.5.

If all of that is true, and I sort of feel that it is, I think we are going to see some real opportunities on the bottom line for the dealers. From our perspective, we contribute by showing dealers how to leverage technology and their workforce. Everybody is trying to do “more with less,” and we can certainly help with that. We are adding products that can help the
workforce directly and leverage them beyond just typical compliance areas. This is very important in all areas of the dealership in order to make sure that they are getting maximum value out of their infrastructure now which is pretty lean. We feel good about where we are. We feel good about what the market is going to do and we especially feel good about what we think it is going to do in 2011 and beyond.

Have you found that dealers are finally grasping onto the grasp of compliance and the tools that you are giving them? Are they implementing it?

What we are finding is that those dealers that are most receptive to discussions are not only cost-conscious but are also deeply concerned about the human side of the documentation due to the fact that they have become extremely lean and need to cover the same amount of requirements. From their point of view they still have to get the same jobs done with less and we are finding that our solutions are providing that answer for them.

The ones we deal with are more receptive. But we really see three different kinds of camps. There is that group that gets it - they understand that compliance is a necessary requirement and look at it as a way to create a competitive advantage versus doing it the old fashioned way. Then there is the group that recently, especially in the last year and a half or so, have just been willing to take a little more risk and they’ve taken the risk of not complying in certain cases with the hope that they aren’t discovered. Then there is the other camp, which frankly consists of those that just don’t know about the alternatives. They don’t know what they don’t know and they are just unaware of certain capabilities and certain ways to address compliance much more effectively and efficiently, so they continue to use the old fashioned way of, paper based, manual compliance activities that we’ve all tried to do historically. I think there is a big part of the market which falls into that third camp, those that are just not aware of the new tools and new capabilities.

Where is Compli headed in the next year or so, and where is compliance?

Where we are headed in the next year kind of goes back to your last question which I thought was an interesting one. If we are doing our job – prevention, then we are keeping our dealers out of the headlines. That is why you don’t see the media-grabbing headlines. We are like a basketball referee. If we are doing a good job, you don’t notice we are there right? That is our job and that is what we want to accomplish. But we are going to take it to the next level with a workforce management approach. We want to be known as the Workforce DMS, so that dealerships can accomplish everything from our platform that revolves around their employees, their workforce requirements. We are coming out with new tools. We are coming out with a new version right after NADA, 6.0, and you will now see 3 new releases a year out of Compli. You will continue to see traditional compliance areas addressed, but we’ll also deliver new workforce products like time-off tracking and other items that we have in store that I think the market will really find interesting.

Compliance is going to resurge. I really believe we are going to start seeing more and more compliance regulations and consumer issues. It is just not going to go away and if you have an easy way to solve it, and you don’t have to re-create the wheel every time a new rule comes out, then it is not a big deal. If you do have to re-create the wheel every time it becomes a big deal or you increase your risk. Compliance will continue to evolve, but that is our job to stay on top of it. It is our job to work with our partners and our experts and build programs that the dealers and workforce need.