This July we are celebrating two years since the official launch of Automotive Transformation Group. That’s 730 days of product innovation, consumer-first engineering, and collaboration across more than 300 skilled individuals!
So, we thought we’d take this opportunity to take a look back at just how much we have achieved in the last 2 years…
A central part
of the last 2 years has been establishing a clear mission as a united group –
to make buying cars easy.
This ideology accompanied
by our industry insight has helped identify a strategic direction for our
development. By studying
12 billion interactions across our Automotive Transformation
Group software, we’ve been able to understand real consumer behaviour, and as a
result, we’ve enhanced our technology to reflect this, with a view to deliver a
true omnichannel experience.
The last two
years have seen a whole host of enhancements to our technology, but highlights
include our
Electric Vehicle Calculator which represented a key milestone in
terms of group-wide collaboration. The calculator uses Total Cost of Ownership
(TCO) technology, originally purposed to deliver tailored vehicle upgrade
offers as part of NetDirector
® Retain, to give consumers a price
comparison between their new EV and their existing vehicle over a three-year
period. The feature is set to become a reliable asset for consumers making the
switch to electric and we look forward to seeing the positive impact this will
have on the industry.
May saw the
launch of our Fusion suite, another key milestone that harnesses the full power
of our NetDirector
® products and services. This launch has been 2
years in the making while we’ve taken the time to seamlessly integrate our different
technologies and ultimately create a holistic and omnichannel approach to
automotive retailing. Through Fusion customers can host a 24-hour shopfront online,
manage all vehicle types, process orders, track leads, standardise branding,
send personalised upgrade offers and so much more. If you’d like to learn more
about what Fusion can do for you,
request a demo here.
Other key
developments include our collaboration with
Santander Consumer Finance UK to create the award-winning Gateway360, an iteration of our retention solution
to inspire more frequent vehicle upgrades. We’ve also made great strides in
vehicle management, internationalising our NetDirector
® SalesMaster
product and introducing new integration abilities to further improve efficiency
for customers. In fact, the founder of this product, Chris Stott, was recently
appointed Director of Alliances for the group, to drive its global adoption.
There have been
many appointments in addition to that of
Chris
Stott
over the last two
years. In September 2022, we welcomed the reign of a new Chief Executive
Officer,
Tim Smith. We then went on to advance our Executive
Team further by appointing
Richard Johnston
as Chief Revenue Officer, Anson Moniz
as Chief Product Officer and employing James Taylor as Head of Performance, Insights and
Marketing to evolve our intelligence.
In the last two
years, we’ve also adopted company-wide values and have made strides in the
Environmental, Social and Governance sphere by establishing a clear roadmap in
line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We’ve also prioritised
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) in a variety of ways as part of an
ongoing initiative to value our people. This includes the appointment of
Lauren Ambrose as Talent and People Director as well as
the implementation of
Automotive 30% Club’s ‘30 by 30’ strategy.
The consolidation
and optimisation of these internal processes don’t just drive efficiencies
throughout the group. They have a tremendous impact on the consumer experience
too. In fact, over the last 2 years, we’ve been recognised through numerous
awards for our consumer-first approach to innovation. In 2022, we were awarded
our first Car Dealer Power Award as Automotive Transformation Group for
Best Website Design for Franchised
Dealers
, an accolade we
were fortunate enough to win once again in 2023. We were also highly commended
for
Consumer Lead Generation that same year. We were also fortunate enough
to win
Customer Experience (CX) Technology of
the Year
in 2023, and
were shortlisted for IT Innovation of the Year in the Motor Trader Independent
Awards for our Electric Vehicle Calculator.
What does the
future hold for Automotive Transformation Group and the wider industry?
We estimate a
lot of key trends taking hold of the automotive industry over the next two
years. We expect to see further adoption of artificial intelligence across the
sector increasing automation and efficiency, but in line with this, we believe
there will be more emphasis on the true value of human interaction.
Meanwhile, investment into omnichannel retailing will increase and we expect themes
like data consistency, connectivity, and personalisation to become the key
differentiators between omnichannel and multi-channel retailing. All of these will
result in new ways to deliver consumers a better more enjoyable experience, and
as ever Automotive Transformation Group will remain at the forefront of this
momentum.
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank each and every colleague who has contributed to our successes since our inception, as well as our customers and partners who continue to believe in the value of our vision and mission. Here’s to another 730 days of collaboration and technology development!
Don’t forget you can keep up to date with consumer insights and product enhancements as soon as they drop by following our company page on LinkedIn.