Yes, the industry is facing a wide range of changes. From ICE to EV, new retail business models, new brands, new technologies shaping (and sometimes threatening) your businesses, the pace of change on all fronts is greater than it’s ever been.
As we often discuss in these pages, all that change can bring new threats but also new opportunities. The challenge is to differentiate one from the other, to choose where and when to invest time and capital, and who to bet on.
There is one tool you have at your disposal that I can almost guarantee will bring positive results: collaboration with your peers.
Dealers are the most inventive and responsive business people I’ve ever met. I absolutely believe the best dealers will prosper amid all that is changing. Sharing ideas and best practices may be the best possible way to tip the odds in your favour. Happily, the industry provides many ways to collaborate, from 20 groups and OEM committees to your local, provincial and national dealer associations.
It’s that last area I’d like to focus on for a minute or two.
I’ve had the privilege of working with CADA and the different provincial dealers associations for more than a quarter century. Through the many meetings, projects, conferences and other ways we’ve collaborated, I’ve had the chance to get to know and learn from many of Canada’s most innovative dealers.
Those dealers that really get involved with their associations have always told me that the time investment they make is far outweighed by the benefits they receive: in ideas; in information; in examples of what works, in new ideas sourced locally, nationally and internationally.
As the pace of change has accelerated, CADA in particular has made it a twinned strategic focus to tighten connections: with peer organizations including NADA in the U.S.; NFDA in the U.K.; AMDA in Mexico; the AADA in Australia; CECRA in Europe; and create closer ties with the provincial dealer associations across Canada.
More collaboration. More examples of what’s working and what the next stage of automotive retail will look like. But for that collaboration to bear fruit in helping Canada’s dealers prosper, it needs to be driven and informed by dealers themselves.
“Our strategies and plans are shaped by dealers every day,” Tim Reuss, CEO of the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association, said to me in a recent conversation. “Whether as part of our committees, board or leadership, our ability to support dealers’ needs starts with their participation. We are the product of their energy and ideas.”
So here’s my request: get involved. At the provincial level. The national level. However you choose. Put yourself forward as part of the next generation of leaders shaping automotive retail in Canada. Your industry, your peers and your business will truly benefit.
