Black Lives Matter
The cover of this issue was designed to get your attention — so you would read this note. Amid all the upheaval and adjustments we’re making as a result of the pandemic, I felt it important to change focus for …
Category: Opinion
Act like a paramedic
Over the past few weeks, I’ve had the privilege of speaking with dozens of amazing car dealers across the country. They are holding up well. They are adapting. They are innovating. But make no mistake, they are hurting. Some describe …
Save your pennies for the second wave
I love this time of year. It’s finally warm in Toronto, and no doubt across most of the country as well. Everything is green and growing; the picture of new, vibrant life. It’s a time of renewal. A time of …
Some notes for the next phase
The news is now dominated by questions around reopening and restarting the economy. That’s good. The economy can’t sustain the level of lockdown we’ve endured through April. Your businesses can’t sustain it, nor can mine. Here’s the challenge, as we …
Dark days: light ahead
We have all just gone through, and continue to experience, the most difficult stretch in our industry’s history — and perhaps in history. No one could have fully imagined the entire world grinding to a halt, with commerce all but …
Tough times, tougher measures
Car dealerships sit at the epicentre of many communities across Canada. They are gathering places where people drop off their vehicles for service, socialize and visit to shop for their dream vehicles. Dealerships have been adapting their stores to create …
Grow the conversation
I don’t know where to begin. But I need to say something, so here goes… Let me start with this: car dealers are the most creative, entrepreneurial, and community-minded group of people I have ever met. The situation we face …
Summit Groundhog Day? Not at all.
As we prepped this issue of Canadian auto dealer, our editorial, sales and video teams were all knee deep in our plans for covering and attending the CADA Summit, the Canadian International AutoShow and NADA — all which happen within …
Thanks. I’ll buy it at home.
Experiential retail. Direct-to-consumer commerce. Look for a lot of coverage on these two topics (closely linked topics, in fact) in Canadian auto dealer in coming issues. They are very important in terms of the current transformation of retail across categories. …
Take a Gemba Walk
To truly understand what was happening on the factory floor, Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the Toyota Production System, advocated for something called the “Gemba Walk.” The idea was for managers and leaders to regularly walk around the factory and …
Remote service coming?
IKEA is on my mind. It should be on yours. I moved recently. And it got me thinking about remote service and the opportunity for dealers. We needed to get a bunch of new beds, as our move is combining …
Embrace change, but faster
Despite the barrage of messages that change is afoot and all around them, most dealers I talked with at the Western Canadian Dealers Summit in Banff, Alta., seemed mostly reassured and confident. Most dealer conferences in the past decade or …
