Are you ready to embark on an enlightening journey through the evolution of computer systems in the dealership world? Accompany us, your hosts, as we rewind to our humble beginnings with Joseph and Jennifer on our first interaction with on-premise AS400 green screen applications. We delve into how the understanding of dealers' modus operandi plays a crucial role in identifying an optimal system for them and the importance of continuous improvement and process documentation.
In our second chapter, Joseph and David enlighten us on the crucial aspect of system selection in this rapidly changing industry. They share their wisdom on the understanding of current processes, pain points, and gaps that dealers are striving to fill. We also illuminate our systematic approach to system selection, which emphasizes value over cost and understands technical requirements for successful implementation.
Our final chapters take you to the future of technology and dealerships, exploring the potential and challenges it beholds. Together with Joseph and David, we look at the role of cloud computing's advantages, the potential of privatized technicians, and the changing landscape of customer relations. We candidly discuss the challenges of decision-making in today's society, abounding with choices. Join us as we share our experiences with technology and the critical thinking necessary in this era of plentiful options. Tune in for this enriching conversation and stay tuned for more engaging discussions.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
Are you ready to embark on an enlightening journey through the evolution of computer systems in the dealership world? Accompany us, your hosts, as we rewind to our humble beginnings with Joseph and Jennifer on our first interaction with on-premise AS400 green screen applications. We delve into how the understanding of dealers' modus operandi plays a crucial role in identifying an optimal system for them and the importance of continuous improvement and process documentation.
In our second chapter, Joseph and David enlighten us on the crucial aspect of system selection in this rapidly changing industry. They share their wisdom on the understanding of current processes, pain points, and gaps that dealers are striving to fill. We also illuminate our systematic approach to system selection, which emphasizes value over cost and understands technical requirements for successful implementation.
Our final chapters take you to the future of technology and dealerships, exploring the potential and challenges it beholds. Together with Joseph and David, we look at the role of cloud computing's advantages, the potential of privatized technicians, and the changing landscape of customer relations. We candidly discuss the challenges of decision-making in today's society, abounding with choices. Join us as we share our experiences with technology and the critical thinking necessary in this era of plentiful options. Tune in for this enriching conversation and stay tuned for more engaging discussions.
Visit us at LearningWithoutScars.org for more training solutions for Equipment Dealerships - Construction, Mining, Agriculture, Cranes, Trucks and Trailers.
We provide comprehensive online learning programs for employees starting with an individualized skills assessment to a personalized employee development program designed for their skill level.
Aloha and welcome to another candid conversation. We're joined today by one of the unique groups of people. This is one of the few power couples in our industry. I don't know which one is more powerful. You know, joseph's pursuing his doctorate, joseph Albright Jen has been working within dealers for God knows how. I won't say anything relative to age-wise, but these two are amazing. Welcome and thank you so much for joining me today.
Speaker 2:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 1:What we're going to do is wander around a little bit of memory lane, talk about current situations and a little bit about the future, and it's all about how computers systems process has changed in the computer in the dealership world. And being the oldest, let me start because I took a computer science course in 1964 where I learned how to wire unit record equipment, and those damn machines are in museums. That's it. Unfortunately I'm not. Nobody wants to pay to see this stuff. But then dealer data processing, I think for Caterpillar was the very first service bureau where they had the computer. Dealers would send in forms, processes where the reports went back, and it went back and forth that way. And if I'm not mistaken, joseph, that's where you started with Caterpillar as a trainer for D&PD Is that correct.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a Caterpillar dealer business system.
Speaker 1:Right. And then at that time, Jen, I think you were working with a Caterpillar dealer.
Speaker 2:Yes, although he started at Cat long before I ever came on the scene.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, he's much older, I understand that that's true. So with that as a starting point, when you guys started with computers and systems relative to dealers, how did that go? How did it happen?
Speaker 3:from your perspective. Well, when I came in, I was in training and in support as well. But the dealers would come in and get trained on the system so that they could be prepared for the implementer to go out and configure a system. And it was all on premise. It was all AS 400 green screen application and it was a system like an ERP system that had sales, parts, service equipment, inventory etc. And then a third party attachment of a accounting system and then, once the dealers got trained up, the implementers would go out, work with them on what, how they wanted to configure it, and then configure it and implement.
Speaker 1:And and Jen, when you were working with the Caterpillar dealers yourself, you were involved with the systems correct.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I had worked with the dealer community on implementing procurement systems and other related bolt-ons to the dealer business system in GL and in that case I would say overall, embracing technology was not quite really a thing just yet. There were a lot of people still embracing paper, not necessarily keen on changing things. That's definitely been an evolution over time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was a huge change management yeah it really was.
Speaker 1:I was hired at the Caterpillar dealer, the first one to fix the problem with the system. For exactly what you were talking about, joseph, and you also, jennifer. The inventory management package was highly sophisticated with statistics, and that was my background. And the inventory had grown triple, quadruple the size, because of the variables inside the program were incorrect, they were multiplying everything by 10, and it was missed and it was assembly language programming and it's hard luck. How to find that stuff anyways. But but as we've and let me mention brand names just for a moment, and it's all of them, you know we've got SAP, microsoft M4, xapt, jd Edwards, oracle, dis, e-emphasis, cdk, all of these and others that are out there, and so now it becomes a little bit of. And technology has changed, computer power has changed. We can do things with telematics today that we never were able to do with sensors and machines and and lifecycle all of that stuff. How the heck does a dealer who really doesn't have those technology skills on as an employee? How do they select one?
Speaker 3:Well, first they had to, and they started to acquire their own IT departments.
Speaker 1:Right right.
Speaker 3:They had these AS400s and never already using them anyway, starting to anywhere in the 90s. But and I'm not going to pick on any particular group but what became evident was that, as you were working with the customer, it became more imperative to understand how they were doing things, instead of just coming in and saying this is where we're going to take you. That was always the notion. It didn't matter who it was. We're going to come in and this is where we're going to take you, and they're all like, oh okay, great, that's awesome.
Speaker 3:But there was no starting point and I used to reference a GPS necessity. You know, for a GPS to function properly, you need a point of origin and a destination. If you don't have a point of origin, you can't possibly get to your destination. So it became apparent that and Jennifer and I were starting to embrace that, you know is that it became more important to understand the as is how are you currently doing business? Such a process. People wanted to divorce systems and processes, and that was a mentality for a long time, and then later became evident that they had to be intertwined. You couldn't take it far.
Speaker 1:Actually that was kind of coincidental to the early 80s with the continuous quality improvement or total quality management or whatever it had been, and I guess that's you know a part of where you were going then within the dealer, documenting the process and how we could make things better.
Speaker 2:Yes, and that's that's, like Joe just said, you know, a really important piece of the process, partly because, as he said, the providers as a whole say, hey, we can do this. You know these amazing things and, and you know, be all things to all people. But in reality, you know, I don't think there really is one best system. It's what's the best system for you.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And it becomes really critical to look at the systems, look at exactly what you need you know and and where the gaps are, because in a lot of cases there are things that you're not doing at all, that you need to be, or that you're doing right now that don't need to be done at all because you know those processes were introduced, you know, three generations ago by someone who was, you know, using a spreadsheet or a punch card or what have you, and isn't necessary anymore. So, kind of trying to kind of weed through those things and come to what's actually necessary, you know, and that goes into the RFP process and picking the right supplier for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Joseph mentioned GPS. I think is a wonderful analogy. You need an origin. So those processes that have been around there two or three generations, who started why, and and and, what's the legacy in that? I call those sacred cows and we've got to shoot the damn things, you know, but it's getting people to change in this, you know. Again, we talked earlier, before we started, about green screen and it's amazing how quick certain people were on green screen. They'd get two or three screens ahead of themselves on the keyboard and it was okay.
Speaker 3:And those in the service and people that were customer facing loved that because the the system, the keyboard, wouldn't memorize it. No, you could get five screens ahead, so if you were doing the same thing you could go very quickly. And then, when the GUI interface came along and they tried to do screen scraper, for example, technology to take the green screen, turn it into a GUI interface people like we're like I don't know how to this is too slow.
Speaker 2:Or have him forbid if you had to use a mouse. Yeah, yeah, 17 times yeah.
Speaker 3:I had a completely flip out on me because the screensaver came on and he thought he broke the system.
Speaker 1:Well it was. There was a brand I think it was Cape Pro Bend, in the back in the seventies that had a portable computer. It was. It was really rudimentary, but when you turned the power on, the first thing that came on the screen was hit a key, any key, and you hit the key and the screen went. You know well you didn't break it. You know to try and get people over the hump. But you know you mentioned GUI interface and here comes a relational database and all this other technology stuff. Initially I think most of the people that were recommending systems were consulting companies.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and in fact, if I'm not mistaken, when I was working with SAP you know, at time that was their consultants did the implementation. Yeah, another company did as well. That was the mode of implementation. We build it, but we don't implement it. We hire people. You know, consultants implement.
Speaker 1:We try, and it's kind of the way that their companies are set up too. They've got a sales force that's out there peddling the product. Then they've got a group of people that installed the product. They know the product really well, but they don't really know our business at all.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Then you've got the customer service people and answer questions on the phone that haven't really visited a dealership that's like the counter and telephone sales that've never been out to a job site. And then you've got product development and you know they have user groups right. We're going to have 10 people that are going to help us determine what we need to do with the package and making it better, and I always yeah, I was brought into the States to run EBS they're no longer in existence in a major way but I was asked to package it for sale and they had 450 dealers at one time on the service bureau and when I was arrived, I think we had 90 or 100 that were still there because they didn't want to sell, didn't want to lose that batch catch cow by selling an online system. Yeah, we've seen even you guys have seen a hell of a lot of change.
Speaker 1:So how does a dealer go through the process of making the decision of a selection? Do they still use outsiders?
Speaker 2:Well, what I see in a lot of cases which good news, bad news, obviously, in our industry, everybody knows everybody. So what do they do? They call a friend and say what are you using, do you like it? And that does carry some weight. But by the same token, as I think we all know here, no two dealers are exactly like, even if they sell the same type of equipment. And so you end up in a situation where, oh, my friend Bob said, this one is great, we're just going to go ahead with this. And have they actually gone through the process of, like Joe said, figuring out their current processes, figuring out their requirements? They may have come to a very different conclusion and then they put in this system without necessarily having someone on staff who really knows how to run an implementation or knows what questions to ask, and then the end result is wow, this system stinks. It's terrible. I mean, it may be a perfectly fine system, but it may not have been the right choice for them and or may not have been implemented well.
Speaker 3:So the first thing a dealer should do is understand themselves. They should document their processes and identify what are the pain points they're experiencing in those processes. If they can't do that themselves, then we obviously are happy, and as consultants that do that, we know sometimes it's best to have an outsider come in, because we can see things that they themselves don't see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you brought up a really important thing pain points. What wakes you up at night? Yeah, because they're there in every single aspect of every single business.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so how, like you, help dealers select systems?
Speaker 3:We help them first identify what they do. We go in and we help them understand themselves. We document their processes, we map it out and then we identify those pain points. Then we say, okay, this is the gap, these are the pain we're trying to resolve. That helps. Now let's go out and see what kind of systems and resolve at least 80 to 90%. If not, you know, we can resolve all of them, but using the 80, 20 or who can resolve most of these? And that will be our short or our short list, right? And then we develop a scorecard based on that to down select those that could meet that goal.
Speaker 1:Well, not to be smart about it, but when I look around because I do systems advisory work as well and evaluations but I don't know that, other than you two who have background in this business, I don't know that there's many out there that are helping dealers on on system selection, that know the business, and I don't know how you can help somebody if you don't know the damn business. Like you say, joseph, creating a process flowchart of everything that goes on in the business Today.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and what's that?
Speaker 1:What's?
Speaker 3:that Well, I have a green I mean a black belt and six sigma. I'm certified EMP project management professional and one of the things that came out of learning those was because I would often be on projects like engineering projects. I'm not an engineer I don't even have my death, I am not an engineer but I know how to run a project, I know how to ask questions, I know how to pull in resources that do have that expertise and so that's just interrupt you a little bit more.
Speaker 1:And so far as blowing your own horn, if I understand right, you teach three classes on supply chain at Bradley University and Indiana University as well. Am I saying it wrong?
Speaker 1:Economics, statistics and accounting All the fun stuff, yeah, just all the easy stuff, right? Yeah, it's kind of so. So there's a, there's a, there's a cue to and I'm you know, I'm not shy. These two know what the hell they're doing. So if you need help, get in touch with them. They're a contributor and a colleague on our website. You can directly connect with them there. But so that's the end of that commercial. So we get. So we get that chart together, I suspect then you start involving different providers. Is that true?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, and the other thing to bear in mind is you know, outside of those functional requirements that come from the process mapping exercises you have, you know the more standard requirements. You know what are the hours of support. You know when is support available. What part of the world is support located in. Are there support levels that are available if you need? You know 24 seven access.
Speaker 2:You know all the general T's and C's and C's and all the other things that are available and C's that kind of go into it so that you can really compare apples to oranges, because sometimes people get into a project and then realize after they've signed, oh wait, all the consultants are on another continent and they're seven hours off from us and how are we supposed to make this work? Better to find those things out ahead of time and know what you're dealing with, then be disappointed on such a large investment.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and obviously costs are the factor too. But if you're only going to concentrate on cost, then there's all the other opportunity costs that you're not looking at. That a bite to the bone.
Speaker 1:You know and that's something I have a part time as a person and have done forever I'm not interested at all in cost, I'm interested in value, right, and that becomes the process flow stream and everything that we would see in our society. You know, just look at entertainment, where, you know, we started with movies, only black and white, silent, then we went to color, then we went to voice, then we went to oh my goodness television and then we went to blockbuster and renting VCRs and, oh, you made a mistake, you went beta. Well, you know all of these things, that and so in our little microcosm as dealers and these dealers are not small anymore. Probably, if I look at the world, I would bet you 75% of the dealers are a billion dollars or more today. That's pretty big stuff.
Speaker 1:You know, in Canada when I started there were 10 catalogued orders. Today there's two one East, one West, finning's one of them and they're probably 18 billion. Last year Toroamont's not far behind Hold. You know we're talking big guys. Now. Same things true with Deer you got Rush and you got RDO. And same things true with Kamatsu You've got the trading company. Same things true with Volvo it's becoming a big boys game. It's too much money for small people anymore.
Speaker 2:It is but that you bring up an interesting topic, though, because while we do have quite a few multi-billion dollar dealerships out there, there are still a very large number of dealers that are in that 20 million to 100 million, and that's a little bit, you know you can't say that price doesn't matter, because you can offer somebody a $3 million system if they're selling $25 million a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the other side of that, jen, I think, is that there's very little available for that price. Point 20 to 75. I'll broaden it, I'll make it up to 75 million. It's very hard to find a system that's cost effective. Yeah, the.
Speaker 1:Hendra dealers, Bobcat dealers, Kubota dealers. There's a whole bunch of these guys that are in the Rental dealers Rental dealers as well, and that's another thing that's kind of intriguing. We started with the construction equipment. Okay, here comes forestry, here comes mining, here comes agriculture, here comes marine, here comes, and it's scattered now. So again the systems providers. My opinion, they're creating peanut butter. They're not providing specialized services anymore, which is one of the things that I think is coming at us. Here comes Salesforce, as an example, that took a niche that was CRM. That wasn't really looked after very well. Here comes Target, here comes Koda, here comes all of these things that are specialized tools that are excellent. How do you bolt them on?
Speaker 2:And there are a lot of tools along those lines that are not necessarily high dollar that your small dealers can take advantage of your telematics, your rental inspection apps, any of those kinds of things, your customer communication tools that can bolt onto any system. So that's where integratability becomes a big factor too. Whether you're big or small, how can these other kind of add on pieces of technology supplement what you have?
Speaker 1:And how does the dealer find those? Because typically those specialists like text messaging on work order process or on pack order process, those things, and there are people that provide that, but how the heck does a dealer find that? And those smaller company specialists, they don't really have good sales coverage.
Speaker 2:And that's where I think organizations like AED come into play, because that's where all the players come together Talking to folks like us. We obviously have a lot of relationships and can make recommendations. But go to the conferences, even if Summit is too large for you going to the leadership one or finance an HR or any of the parts or operations type sessions. There are vendors that do show up that apply to those groups, and then you can at least get to see some of these things firsthand and meet some of the players, as opposed to just trying to do a Google search, which is mind-numbing.
Speaker 3:But then you got to be careful because, again, that's where the salesmen are. So you got to be careful because they'll say we can solve your problem without even looking at what your problem is. So that's where we get back to identifying what's the root cause of your pain and how best to resolve it. So, yeah, you can find out who all's out there. But again, you got to know yourself and go through the due diligence before you listen to someone say I can solve all your problems.
Speaker 1:When I came into the States in 1983 and EBS and I was in Denver and there was a gentleman in Denver by the name of Bob Lane who was a district rep for a manufacturer, ended up being chairman of the company. And in 1983, 84, john Deere that company decided they were going to get into the software business. I had dinner with Bob, because I'm with EBS, and I said okay, what the hell's going on? Are you guys going to make machines or are you going to sell systems? He said that's above my pay grade.
Speaker 1:Well, he became chairman and I called him and asked him the same question and he said well, that's somebody else wrong. He punted the answer, the question Within the manufacturers, within the OEMs, every single one of them, caterpillar Commencement, volvo Dealer, case Deere, everybody has flirted with systems.
Speaker 3:Well, they want to be able to get the data when they need the data, and that it's. If they're dealing with several dealerships, let's say they want it to all come to them in a standardized format. So if you can control that, then that's a plot, that's a gain and you can regurgitate the information back to the marketing organizations or the dealerships in a unified manner. But then you start running into problems that not all dealers are the same. You can't make that assumption that just because it's a dealer, a heavy equipment dealer or a rental company, whatever, you can't make the assumption they're all the same, because when you start getting down into the weeds they're like a fingerprint they're all different.
Speaker 1:You make my point, though, because none of those manufacturers OEMs are today peddling a software package other than Deere, and Deere market share is very low because of exactly what you're talking about Every dealer. As much as we think, they're the same, they're all different. They're all unique.
Speaker 2:Well, and they all have other side businesses. Some of them sell cranes, some of them sell eggs, some of them sell other lines that may not have anything to do or tangentially involved with the core business line. So a one size fits all software solution just doesn't do it.
Speaker 1:So let's shift gears a little bit and talk about tomorrow. Look down the road five years. Where the heck do you think we're going with technology in our industry?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think the cloud is inevitable. There are dealers that really prefer on-premises software and will fight that tooth and nail, but I think between just technology advances cybersecurity concerns the ability to really safeguard your data the cost of servers and people with the expertise to manage those things cloud is inevitable, as much as people like to fight it. I do think that we're going to see more and more kind of add-ons the workflow providers, the again different apps and other things that will bolt onto a core system and maybe even see something more along the lines of a basic trunk, of the tree type system where that integratability comes in to, where you can choose this rental or you can choose that certificate of insurance, tracking or what have you, to kind of make your own adventure type of tool, as opposed to thinking that one system is going to do it all.
Speaker 1:I think that's very much in our future, kind of like an octopus we're going to have a core that holds the data. The cloud, I think, is inevitable. But again, the one size fits all is a risk for me because every dealer wants to have different pricing options et cetera. So the cloud cannot be homogenous.
Speaker 3:No, no, the more proprietary it gets, the less. Yeah, still configurable, it's still configurable, but yeah, the less flexible it is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then they'd be able to choose different pieces rather than one. I think, Jen, that's really. We'll have one rental package, we'll have one finance package, we'll have CRM reporting, all that stuff.
Speaker 3:And especially if you are one of those 25 to 200 million dollar dealers but you're looking to grow, you need to be able to have a platform that you can grow on.
Speaker 1:That's scalable.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure You'll be able to change out some of those arms of the octopus as you grow and need a little bit more functionality, because there are going to be some solutions that are just not as good of a fit anymore once you get to a certain number of locations or a certain level of complexity.
Speaker 1:So where do you think working from home fits into this?
Speaker 2:I mean we're the wrong people to ask because we work from home.
Speaker 1:But inside a dealership can I provide customer service to customers without being in an office?
Speaker 2:That has been a big topic of conversation at a lot of the events that I've attended over the last year. I think the short answer is, in many roles, yes, you can. However, I think that many dealer principles and leadership folks are not really embracing that just yet because we're still kind of bogged down in the notion of relationships and handshakes, which are important. They are a critical piece of this business as much as any other, and maybe especially this business. But you can still achieve that, I think, without necessarily having to be in your office at your desk 40 hours a week, every single day.
Speaker 3:And it depends on the complexity of your product. I mean also if you're in the administrative part of the business, you're counting finance person. Those can be third party and even outsourced. Yeah, they can work on them. But service, obviously, unless you have a mobile service and you have enough proxy to meet the demand of your customers, you're as parameter, but stay with that.
Speaker 1:Just for a second Service has probably the lowest market share in our industry of any of the categories part-service sales, rentals and, depending on who you talk to, if you really want to get positive, it's 30% of the available market of labor, down to as low as five.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:In order to be able to have the dealer take control of that. Just think how much money and investment in buildings that is. So that's not going to change. And as long as the dealer mechanic is not the primary person to place the order for the part, then the dealer parts businesses at risk. So both of those things to me say that the dealer of the future might be at risk.
Speaker 2:I mean there are definitely some models out there. I mean I know that you know of providers that are trying to kind of turn that upside down, really privatizing the technicians as opposed to making them dealer employees. There are a lot of different things going on to really upset the status quo. I mean, I think that there's always going to be a shop service component, simply because not everything can be done in the field.
Speaker 1:The only one that has been able to avoid that is Elon Musk, and that business model is, I think, five or 10 years from now. That's going to blow up.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that, again going back to technology, the more people can troubleshoot or do a diagnostic or something on their own. I realized the whole legislation conversations that have been going on with right to repair and all those things are going to play into this too. I don't think, though, that the dealer service piece of it will ever completely go away, because even if you can, I mean not everybody wants to.
Speaker 1:How close do you think we are to individuals being able to self diagnose?
Speaker 3:Well, some of the machines are equipped to diagnose. You know like they send oil, gas and other lube information back to the dealership. You know from the field.
Speaker 2:True, and telematics and all of that. I mean I think that some of it's going to be legislation driven, some of it's going to be, you know, people driven in terms of just technical ability and interest in doing those things, but I mean I don't think it's truly that far off, good or bad.
Speaker 1:We've got a Samsung washer and dryer at home that we can do all our diagnostics on the phone, directly talking to the washer or the dryer, and they talk back.
Speaker 2:Yeah, our dryer does that too, yeah.
Speaker 3:I'll be in another state. I can tell her the wash is done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we've got the same thing. Unfortunately, we have two places, you know, so we control the thermostat and monitor the attention and opening and closing doors from here for there and there to here. I mean it's wild what you can do today.
Speaker 3:But, as they say, necessity is the mother of invention or change. And right now there still is a huge shortage of technicians and we see companies even trying to rob from each other. Right, and these technicians will move for very little, you know, and I think that will drive some of this change into making it more automated.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, we're hooked up with about 10 different schools across the country with the technical training with technicians, and some of the manufacturers have pretty powerful and strong technical training classes, product features and benefits classes. So I think you're right, there will always be a place for it. But I guess the rule that I look at is whoever is closest to the customer is going to win, and that's building a relationship and that's based on trust, and trust is based on performance and performance requires technology and whether it's a business system or distributed system or cloud system or local, whatever it is, I don't see dealers having skills on board Cyber security I mentioned just quickly in the cloud. If the dealer is not scared to death about hacking their computers, I don't know where they'll live in.
Speaker 3:And from what we see, they're not enough. Oh scared enough.
Speaker 1:We've had personally two instances where our bank accounts were hacked over the last 15 years. One emanated out of a hotel in London and the other emanated out of a hack of. There's no firewall on your modems and your internet provider routers, which is really weird to consider. So there's a lot of brains that are working on this. I'm trying to get into things and I don't know very many dealers that have anybody that they contract with or employ. Who's a data security pro?
Speaker 2:Well, and there are some third parties that are specific to our industry that are great, and what I've been told over the last few years especially is either having someone like that and or a cloud software provider is really your best bet, because then you have teams of people who have nothing else to do except become experts on this and stay experts on this, as opposed to one or two people at the dealership who may or may not be current on the latest technologies, the latest hacking or incident prevention or whatnot.
Speaker 1:One of the interesting things is when I was starting, the people that were doing consulting and data security at serve prison terms.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've met a few of them.
Speaker 1:It's really remarkable, and I know many dealers not one or two, but many dealers that have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars through various nefarious activities. Yes, we know, but like you say, the benefit of the cloud, having specialists that their life depends on and they love it, and that's cool. That's just not. That's something we can outsource. And that's wonderful database manager. We can outsource it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and when you start looking at it again, going back to the smaller dealers, you've got a $50 million dealer who might have 50 employees. What are the chances that they're going to have someone in that area who is an expert and can stay current? Not nearly as likely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the other thing a lot of those, and this is not disrespectful at all, but they rely on their children at university because they're a hell of a smarter, and a lot of the stuff of my grandkids 22 and 18. They shame me now, and I've been involved with technology most of my life. The other thing that seems to be coming faster and faster but is problematic in data analytics, the quality of data that we're dealing with, in my view, is suspect. I don't think dealers have paid attention to that. Am I wrong?
Speaker 2:Not, as much as they should. No, and that's where some of the third party providers out there can be a great resource, because when we started talking earlier about all of these bolt-ons and apps and third party applications, really you mean someone who's going to be able to pool data from all of those sources and give the ability to manipulate it into the ways that you need to to make decisions.
Speaker 1:That's where your octopus, that core that we bolt everything on? Today there's a lot of dealers that have differing systems. That example let's just talk about a customer profile. I've got three different systems. They have three different customer cross and guess what? They don't talk to each other and different people are updated. That's where I'm worried about data.
Speaker 2:Yeah you need to save some.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's a lot of. There's always a big push on big data. Get the data, get the data, but it's duplicate data, like you were alluding to. It's all duplicate and once they got the data, they don't know how to utilize that data to make sound business decisions.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with you 100%. The same thing is true with financial statement, joe. What goes into the cost of sales in one place is different that goes in the other place, and so KPIs all of a sudden become, oh you know so there's a whole host of things, like the dealership, and let me make the simple analogy the car dealer make money selling cars at list price because the manufacturer rebates based on volumes.
Speaker 1:The dealership, when I started a typical tractor D8, the most popular tractor on the planet was under $100,000, believe it or not. So you know it didn't really matter. And in those days, like right after World War II, there were seven people that make tractors in America. I think today there's three, and it's you know. All of this stuff is a function of the fact that we don't keep up with change, which is where technology which is why I think this discussion is so important for people what? Where have we been? Here's the track record. Here's the rate of change. It's pretty scary. A lot of people have sacred cows. I'm going to keep it that way. The acceleration of change is exponential. It's getting faster and faster, and here comes artificial intelligence. And God save me, I don't know where that's going, you know, yeah, yeah, I think this has been a worthwhile discussion. Any final closing thoughts either of you would want to say to dealers when they're looking at technology?
Speaker 2:I mean in a nutshell, there's so many packages out there. Like I said before, there's not one best provider and everyone else is awful. It's just who's the best fit for you. So don't be afraid to go out there and ask questions and ask for help if you need help. But but you know, be sure to ask all the questions that need to be asked to get the best solution for you and do the due diligence.
Speaker 3:Don't just accept their word that they're the best for you.
Speaker 2:Or your buddy's word.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I know yourself. I agree with that all 100%. One last thing, let me ask from a teaching perspective what are you seeing as the biggest need of kids in university these days relative to the business world?
Speaker 3:Application of what they're learning. I agree 100%.
Speaker 3:It's too much theory still, isn't it? Yeah, I mean that's. One thing that I enjoy about my classes is that I'm not a teacher. This is, I was a practitioner before I was a teacher, so I can and I had wished. When I was in college, you know, these were professors who went to school through thought school and I couldn't get what. Why would I do it? How am I going to use it? Yeah, how am I going to? I was just going to apply, and so that's what I try to bring in, and I hope more more professors do it.
Speaker 1:Congratulations. I agree with the other percent. I had a teacher in physics, thermodynamics and the. He didn't mark on a curve. The past was 18%. Only one person passed. We were all in the honors program math physics. He was a concert pianist at the age of 25 and a PhD in physics. The guy was brilliant. I had a cousin who was a PhD in nuclear physics in the 50s. He was brilliant. He's one of maybe a dozen men on the planet he's since passed. But the young kids today are confronted with so much, so many choices and the reason I bring it back is that comes right back to the systems and technology. We are confronted as people with so many choices and we're not equipped, in my view, to make the choice.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I tell my students to be critical thinkers.
Speaker 1:Yep, yep. Well, thank you, the power couple of the industry. I appreciate the time and I hope everybody listening to this got something out of it, and thank you for attending this candid conversation and we look to having one again in the near future with you, mahalo.