A little bit of one-on-one
For many of us in the automotive industry, there is plenty of time spent poring over charts and tables of data, trying to glean the insights the data is willing to yield. The Canadian auto dealer team has the benefit …
Category: Opinion
Embracing the EV-olution in 2023
Congratulations, if you’re reading this you made it through 2022, a year that started off on very shaky ground, with new virus strains, continuing economic disruption, and a new war to top it off. But over the last six months, …
Year end grab bag
As I write my last publisher’s note of the year, I’d like to clear out some odds and ends I thought worth highlighting. Back together again I’d like to thank the provincial dealer associations across the country for their commitment …
Economy, whither art thou?
Over the last six months or so, we’ve seen the economic outlook go from strong to not strong. The expectation now is that we’re facing a recession through 2023. I thought it might be worth a slightly deeper look at …
Emerging and connecting
As we, as a society, emerge from the pandemic, and we, as an industry, see glimmers of the end of historic supply shortages, I’m doing a bit of a slow emergence myself, from behind the scenes to being a more …
Do you trust your gut?
When it comes to making key decisions, it’s always an interesting question: does someone with years (or decades) of industry experience rely on their “gut” instinct or numbers in a spreadsheet to make a decision? Dealers have to make key …
Join me in Detroit (and other places)
For the first time in a few years, I’m looking at a very active in-person fall event schedule. Face to face with peers, thought leaders and influencers. I’m very excited about it. A number of key Canadian events are taking …
How’s your tech stack?
Every so often, you hear a term or phrase used often enough that it penetrates your consciousness. Like, “tech stack.” At Universus, we were doing an analysis of our own tech stack, to see if our tools were suitable for …
Really, it’s all about the people
Over many years and many roles, I’ve had the chance to collaborate and commiserate with a remarkable list of professionals, partners and friends. I’d like to take a moment to recognize three of those people. Two of them played pivotal …
Meet the new editor!
Some of you might have seen a news story in our e-news announcing that Stephanie MacDonald was named the new editor of Canadian auto dealer. I was really touched when the head of one of Canada’s largest dealer groups reached …
Kilometres driven vs. fuel prices
How much Canadians use their vehicles is a strong predictor of revenue opportunities in both vehicle sales and fixed operations. Particularly fixed operations. Dealers know that all too well. At a time when inventories are basically non-existent, the need to …
The next era of software
I believe we’re coming to the end of what I’ll call the Digital Chaos Phase of the automotive industry. Please note that I don’t use the word chaos as a pejorative. It has been chaotic for a couple of …
