John Currado (left), Alan Bird (right).
Lead management software provider SCI MarketView changed its name to taq Automotive Intelligence in a move described by the company’s CEO Alan Bird as more than just a rebrand.
Bird is also the President and CEO of SCI Ltd, the parent company of the newly rebranded SCI MarketView, and SCI Lease Corp. In an interview with Canadian auto dealer, he said the term “rebrand” is generic and that the shift is an evolution of the business that is greater than just a logo change.
“It’s really about bringing a different offering to the marketplace, creating a different customer experience for our corporate and dealer partners,” said Bird. “To us, it’s really more of an introduction of a new business to the marketplace, benefiting from all of our learnings that we’ve had over the years.”
The offering in question is a platform, and while there are a number of services currently available—from credit portals to CRMs and digital retailing and equity mining tools—Bird said there is no platform in the market that combines all of those offerings in one place.
“It’s really the coming together of multiple offerings on one platform that will allow dealerships and OEMs to deliver a solution to the marketplace in one environment that ultimately drives more data from that environment,” said Bird.
He adds that the platform is about bringing a different solution to the market that makes use of the company’s software, but also includes a lot of experience, data, and intelligence that ultimately feels different.
“We all know that data, when properly utilized, creates intelligence, and that intelligence helps all of our businesses deliver a better solution to our customers,” said Bird.
Overall, Bird is eyeing a more intelligent way of selling vehicles, which is why they are shifting how the business operates. However, the shift in strategy was not his decision alone; the collective leaders of the organization, through market research and customer feedback, realized that the market has evolved and that they needed to make sure the company evolved as well—at least to the point of having a leading edge.
Part of the company’s shift also includes the re-alignment of its senior leadership, which is why John Currado, with more than 30 years of experience in the industry and nearly a decade with SCI MarketView, has been tapped as President of taq Automotive Intelligence. He is also the chief operating officer for SCI Ltd.
“We’ve been working on this for quite some time,” said Currado. “We’re looking forward to the opportunity to get this into market and show people the difference we can make in their business—not just from a technology perspective, but certainly from a deeper and more intimate understanding of how they want to achieve their goals.”
Currado said they are retraining and evolving a number of skill sets in the organization so customers will feel differently about the brand moving forward—seeing the company as more than just a software provider.
Overall, Bird is eyeing a more intelligent way of selling vehicles, which is why they are shifting how the business operates.
To do this, they are offering courses through an internal training program meant for team members, and geared towards emphasizing the behaviours the company wants them to undertake: how to understand what this means to them on a daily basis, what automotive intelligence means, and how they are going to work on building what comes next.
The goal is also to ensure that all team members, no matter their position, can help come up with solutions: they want developers that understand the business and understand that they are building a solution, not just a software. And account executives and regional managers in the field acting as the company’s research and development group, talking to dealers and coming up with “what if” scenarios and solutions.
It all relates to the way customers are engaging with dealers, which evolved rapidly due in large part to the pandemic—and is in turn pushing (or inspiring) suppliers in the market to make these kinds of shifts.
“We’re trying to make sure that we can contribute and add value in that interaction between the dealer and their customer, and bring innovative and creative ways for businesses to do that at market,” said Currado.
The company plans to unveil its new and updated services later this fall.
