2018 Q2 Newsletter
The IARA Spring Roundtable in Review
The International Automotive Remarketers Alliance (IARA) loaded its recent 2018 Spring Roundtable with sessions pertinent to consignors. Sessions covered disruptions in the automotive industry, vehicle residual trends, ways of maximizing reconditioning ROI, and more.
By Andy Lundin
Officially kicking off the Spring Roundtable was a keynote presentation from Bob White, executive VP and COO at ARI. His panel covered the past, present, and future disruptions in the automotive and remarketing industries, and ways to be prepared for changes.
“The degree of change, the scale of change, and the speed of change is something I don't know if we've ever experienced in our working lives,” said White during his keynote presentation. “A lot of this is driven by technology. It's really hard to escape the fact that technology is everywhere. I've heard some folks say recently, ‘No matter what business you're in, you're in the technology business.’ And there's a lot of truth to that, but it's not just technology itself that's changing or driving the change.”
During his presentation, he addressed how much more worldwide focus has been on the auto industry in terms of disruption, with the likes of electric vehicles, autonomous vehicles, the shared vehicle economy and other industry changes. He stressed the significance of industry professionals focusing on these disruptive trends.
“I think it is important that we adapt to change, we're open to change even when we don't know what the future holds,” he said. “I mean, you don't have to be perfect. Nobody is. You don't even have to be first in the market, but you do have to be willing to change and adapt what you do, how you do it, and who you do it for. And quite frankly, you just need to be willing to question everything that you do and what you've. “
White also likened the ubiquity of the smartphone, and the overall changes in the way people consume media, to the significance of technology and how greatly it has impacted humanity.
Residual Trends Forecast ForumShortly after the keynote presentation, the IARA hosted its consignor forum on the forecast of residual trends. The presentation examined trends that may affect vehicle residual values in 2018, as well as trends witnessed in 2017.
The forum discussion was hosted by Rene Abdalah, senior vice president for RVI Group, and included panelists James Crocker, director of operations for Merchants Fleet Management; Mike Scott; auction remarketing manager for Consumer Portfolio Services; and Layne Weber, director of wholesale western U.S. for Avid Budget Group.
“From our perspective, 2017, was very volatile, especially the second half,” said Abdalah during the forum discussion. “Through the third quarter, we saw residual values softening on a year-over-year basis of around 4-5%, and then we hit hurricane season and everything changed. And by the end of the year, we were comparing December 2017 with December 2016, and was pretty much on par. So the market strengthened and then started changing again.”
Abdalah said during the presentation that his organization was predicting that overall supply will continue to increase in the market. Panelists also noted a soft January, which was opposite from the increase in demand that was witnessed during hurricane season, which has tapered off since.
“Now I think we’re more into the typical. On a year-over-year basis, I think we’re looking at a softening, overall. And for the rest of the year, supply is something we’ll be keeping an eye on,” Abdalah said. Crocker of Merchants Fleet Management also noted that his company has seen demand shift in the sedan market to crossovers and SUVs in 2018. “Overall, I see values of the sedan continuing to go down. We’re seeing the incentives go up on these vehicles as the manufacturer’s fear that they’re going to have a lot of inventory around and we’re really seeing a shift to crossovers.”
Maximizing Reconditioning ROIThe last panel discussion to round out the Spring Roundtable was on ways to improve vehicle reconditioning ROI. This was held just prior to the IARA Circle of Excellence Award Luncheon and the official start of the Conference of Automotive Remarketing (CAR), which was held in tandem with the Spring Roundtable.
The panel was hosted by Kurt Madvig, VP of auction operations for ADESA; Julie Picard, VP and general manager of Manheim Seattle; and Doug Turner, regional manager for America’s Auto Auction.
During the forum, panelists provided an overview of current reconditioning trends, industry pain points, and a group discussion in which attendees answered a series of questions to further expand upon the discussion.“When you consider that, what does your online reconditioning strategy look like versus when you’re in lane,” said Turner. “Are they different? Do they need to be different?”He addressed that the continued improvement of vehicle longevity has had a serious impact on how industry professionals consider ROI “As you think about reconditioning, you have to think about how what the market looks like now and what is it going to look like going forward. Let’s face it; cars are being built better now than they ever have, the gap between imports and domestic cars is closing, domestic cars are better now than they have ever been,” said Turner. “Things are changing and they’re going to continue to change.”
Keeping Vehicle Data Safe in an Evolving Remarketing Landscape
Data will be one of the most important commodities in the future. As vehicles technology continues to evolve, and more personal data is stored in vehicles, ensuring that that the personal data stored inside vehicles remains safe will be one of remarketer’s biggest tasks.
By Eric Gandarilla
Remarketers of today already have to think about the personally identifiable data stored inside the vehicles they’re remarketing. These concerns, and the data stored in vehicles, will grow exponentially as vehicles, and the technology inside of them, continue to evolve. This is why associations like Auto-ISAC, the IARA, along with companies like Jack Cooper Logistics are already analyzing and implementing ways to distribute knowledge and best practices when it comes to personally identifiable information.
In a recent study conducted by the IARA, in association with various auctions in the U.S. and Canada, 400 cars were analyzed to see how often personal data from a previous owner was left in a vehicle. The vehicles analyzed covered 12 manufacturers and 32 makes, and what the IARA found was that more than half of the vehicle had some sort of personal information still in it.
In a discussion hosted by the IARA and led by Andrea Amico, president of Jack Cooper Logistics along with Faye Francy, executive director of Auto-ISAC, the two discussed the transitional period we’re living in where people don’t realize how much data their car has on them, and the steps that can and should be taken to safeguard their information.
Protecting Data inside a VehicleA person looking at the data stored inside a vehicle can gain access to a wealth of information on the person driving it, noted Amico. Using stored GPS data, call logs, messages, a viewing eye could ascertain where a person lives, where they work, where they go to school, and where they like to go for breakfast on the weekends, he added.
When vehicles become even more interconnected than they already are, the amount of information that could be gathered on a driver will only logically increase. To ensure that current, and future, data is safe, Amico suggested that one of the first places that should be looked at should be a vehicle’s dashboard.
He brought up the fact that a typical dashboard inside a vehicle today has anywhere between 30-60 buttons. This means that if an individual wants to attempt to clear the data on his or her vehicle, he or she needs to maneuver through all of these buttons in order to find a way to clear his or her data.
This shouldn’t be the case, he added, a dashboard should be designed to simplify a user’s interaction, not complicate it. A design philosophy that he encourages manufacturers to follow would be that of an iPhone. An iPhone has only four buttons, making it simple to operate. Not only, that, but one of the button’s sole purpose is to lock the device, which is something that should be found in vehicles, he noted.“I don’t think anybody in this room should ever be worried about having to delete information,” Amico shared to a room of remarketing professionals at the Conference of Automotive Remarketing.
Another method of keeping data secure would be implementing dual factor authentication into vehicles. By implementing dual factor authentication, a person would be required to enter a PIN in order to essentially log in to their vehicle. If an unauthorized user failed to enter the correct PIN multiple times, the system would lock and personal data could be reset. In order to accommodate vehicles with multiple drivers, such as a family car or a fleet vehicle, a profile system, similar to the one you find on Netflix, could also be added to vehicles, Amico noted. Drivers would have their own profile, as well as their own separate PIN in order to log into their respective profile. This would prevent unauthorized access to an individual’s data, since each person’s data would only be accessible by their respective profile, Amico added.
“Privacy-by-design should be built into future cars, but we don’t have to wait for the car of the future to start tackling this issue. That’s why IARA started the Privacy and Cybersecurity Group,” Amico noted.
A Brief History of Auto-ISAC’s Executive Director
The IARA and Auto-ISAC recently formed a partnership in order to share information on data privacy and cybersecurity with the remarketing industry. Here is a short look at the woman leading Auto-ISAC.
By Eric Gandarilla
The mission of Auto-ISAC is to be the independent broker of information to help the auto industry share data, learn about threats that could affect the industry, and form techniques to mitigate those threats. If there’s a “bad guy” attacking the industry, it’s Auto-ISAC’s goal to protect the industry against it.
To help accomplish this goal, Auto-ISAC forms partnerships with various private companies, industry associations, and government agencies. Recently, Auto-ISAC formed a partnership with the IARA.
Faye Francy took the mantle of Auto-ISAC’s first executive director nearly two years ago. This, however, wasn’t the first time that she had served as an executive director, before her start at Auto-ISAC she was the executive director of Aviation-ISAC. Before then, she worked at the Boeing Company for about 25 years.
Her transition to executive director of Auto-ISAC happened almost by happenstance. She had recently retired from her role as executive director of Aviation-ISAC and was helping out the automotive ISAC as it was trying to understand how to operate as an ISAC. At the time that she began working with Auto-ISAC, the organization had only recently been formed. In 2014, 15 OEMs came together and created the non-profit to enhance the knowledge base of the industry.
“So I was helping them because they’re very similar industries, platforms, manufacturing, culture, etc. And so I thought I was going to do a consulting job where I could actually retire and have fun, but instead, it was a full-time job,” said Francy.
For those unaware of what an ISAC is, it stands for Information Sharing and Analysis Center. The model for an ISAC was originated in 1998 under President Bill Clinton after he recognized that 80% of the critical infrastructure in the United States was owned or operated by the private sector, according to Francy.
The president had concern that the private sector did not have the same intelligence that the government did, so he wanted to help. This resulted in the ISAC model, which would give the private sector the ability to collaborate amongst themselves, but also with government agencies for additional data.
The first ISAC that stood out was Financial Services ISAC, Francy noted. Today, there are roughly 23 ISACs in various fields such as IT, communications, and manufacturing.
Technology inside vehicles is moving at an unpresented pace, according to Francy. Inside a vehicle, there roughly 100 million lines of code operating the vehicle, that’s more than what is inside a 787 or jet fighter aircraft, she noted. This is why the mission of Auto-ISAC is as crucial as it is, Francy added, the automotive industry is traversing through uncharted waters. “There are risks with the interconnectivity coming to vehicles. We call it the Internet of Things, I call it the Internet of Threats because the more we interconnect, the more opportunity for vulnerability, whether its simple software bugs or things we hadn’t thought about in our designs. I hope you’re thinking about cyber hygiene in your company, and I Hope that you’re doing training exercises to address them,” said Francy.
App Spotlight: Privacy4Cars
Data privacy is, and will continue to be, a very important aspect of remarketing a vehicle. As it turns out, many vehicles at auction have some sort of personal data left from the previous owner, according to a study conducted by the International Automotive Remarketers Alliance that looked at 400 vehicles from auctions throughout Canada and the U.S. In this study, over half of the vehicles analyzed had some sort of personal information from the previous owner such as home address, previous destinations, call and text message logs, contact book details, and garage codes.
Privacy4Cars, an app developed by Jack Cooper Logistics, aims to simplify the process of wiping data off of a vehicle to ensure personal data is kept secure.
“Basically we built an “Encyclopedia Britannica” of infotainment systems, so users don’t have to read lengthy (and obscure) manuals nor memorize thousands of variations of hardware, firmware, and procedures across makes, models, years, and trims,” said Andrea Amico, president of Jack Cooper Logistics and new IARA compliance committee co-chair. “Users can easily follow visual step-by-step instructions right on their phones. Privacy4Cars works for many common vehicles as far back as 2007 models and we are adding new instruction sets every week.”
Using the app is simple, a VIN scanner allows the user to search input the exact vehicle they own to receive instructions on how to wipe the vehicle’s personal data (although the vehicle could be searched by year, make, and model as well). Once the vehicle is identified, the app will present simple and clear step-by-step instructions on how to navigate the vehicle’s infotainment system to delete personal information. This, Amico added, allows users to skip sifting through lengthy vehicle manuals to find how to accomplish the same task.
“Privacy4Cars creates value for consignors, auctions, and other partners because it dramatically cuts down the time needed to erase the PII and because instructions are intuitive so lower skilled labor can reliably perform the deletion,” said Amico.
The app is currently available on the
Google Play Store.
Board Member Spotlight: Lori Murtagh
Compliance in areas such as remarketing is one of Lori Murtagh’s tasks as chief risk leader for SCI Lease Corp. and SCI MarketView, and she feels that information-sharing with IARA members will help her in that role.
By Daryl Lubinsky
As chief risk leader for SCI LeaseCorp and SCI Marketview in Markham, Ontario, Canada, Lori Murtagh focuses much of her attention on compliance issues. That includes keeping an eye on compliance topics in the U.S., and she participates in alliances such as IARA that address those topics. Privacy issues related to connected vehicles with telematics is one example of those compliance areas of focus. Features such as navigation systems capture a great deal of data that many consumers might consider private. Murtagh is seeing an increased focus on determining who is responsible for that data. She has seen that many legislators in Canada and the U.S. believe that the OEM should be responsible for facilitating the ability to obtain consumer consent prior to utilizing the connected services.
“Then we’re talking a lot about when those vehicles are off-lease, and that takes us to the remarketing side of the business,” Murtagh said. She is hearing that when vehicles are returned, the telematics systems in those vehicles might still contain what could be construed as personal information about the previous drivers.“We’re talking about ways in which we can support deleting that data, including suggesting that to consumers themselves by virtue of communication to say, ‘When you return your car, make sure you’ve deleted all that data from your vehicle.’ We’ve been focused on trying to get ahead of any legislation that may deem the consignors to be responsible in some way, so we’re trying to be good global citizens by talking about it and generating awareness.”
Keeping on top of the latest compliance issues is just one of Murtagh’s areas of focus at SCI Ltd., which includes two companies: SCI LeaseCorp, which handles leasing for Chrysler and Maserati in Canada; and SCI Marketview, which is a technology company that provides digital marketing products and services to dealers. She took on an executive leadership role in launching SCI LeaseCorp in 2015, meaning she came a long way from her start 28 years ago with Municipal Leasing, a small independently owned company in Toronto. She worked in the legal department as part of the lease obligation enforcement team and eventually moved up to become a small claims court litigator for the company, representing it in lease contract default cases for more than seven years before she was promoted to supervisor of the legal department. The company went through several acquisitions through the years—it was officially renamed FinanciaLinx in 1999—and she worked in various roles, including human resources. In 2007 she began serving as vice president of operations, overseeing originations, servicing, and lease maturity administration. After GM Financial Canada acquired FinanciaLinx in 2011, Murtagh eventually transitioned to a role in operations support where she was responsible for driving technology initiatives on behalf of the business before leaving in 2015 to join SCI Ltd.
She began her role at SCI building and overseeing every aspect of SCI’s leasing business from start to finish, meaning from the initial customer credit check to the end of the lease. She explained that SCI LeaseCorp dealer clients enter their customers’ credit information into an SCI portal, and SCI funds and services the lease transaction. “When the cars come back at lease end, we will remarket them with the solutions we have available to us,” such as physical and online auctions, she said.
In 2017, she became chief risk leader for SCI Lease Corp and SCI MarketView, supporting both businesses from risk and compliance and legal perspectives. She feels IARA will help her in that role. “I need to be a part of any partnership or committee that would put us in the same company of, in the case of IARA, other consignors that we would traditionally be likened to,” she said. She joined IARA last year and now serves as the co-lead for the alliance’s compliance chapter in Canada. She was elected to the board of directors effective this year. She likes that IARA members want to share best practices to support the remarketing industry as a whole. “The information sharing, the news, and knowledge has been probably the most compelling in terms of where I see the value in that committee.”
Board Member Spotlight: Allison Kline
Allison Kline is seeing increased consignor interest in using available data to maximize values within their portfolios.
By Daryl Lubinsky
After DaimlerChrysler Financial Services hired Allison Kline in 2003 as a member of an internal consulting team focused on strategic projects such as new product launches, her first assignment was in the area of remarketing. She had no expertise in remarketing at the time. “I was brought in to help redesign dealer engagement at the lease turn-in process,” in anticipation of DaimlerChrysler Financial Services’ high volume of lease returns around the mid- to late-2000s, she said. The captive finance company was looking for best practices on how to maximize all of its sales channels to engage dealers, increase sales, and support the brand. She was impressed with Eckart Klumpp, who was vice president of remarketing and who is now senior vice president of sales and marketing at Hyundai Capital America. She described him as “proactive and visionary.” “When the major volume came in, he was proactively managing how we would minimize our losses,” she said. “I liked working in that organization because of how forward-thinking they were and how he was trying to put a strategy in place that would benefit the organization a year or two down the road when all this volume came back. He was trying different things, challenging the norm, and I liked working in that environment. That was my first introduction to remarketing.” She went on to perform other project work for DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, and she accepted a position in remarketing under Klumpp.
The remarketing business is interesting to Kline because it is continually evolving. But she noted that through the evolution, the goal remains the same: to minimize losses, minimize cost, sell faster, and earn more. She added that industry members can follow various best practices such as auction consolidation to reach those goals. While at DaimlerChrysler Financial Services, she worked with major auction houses and always had good experiences working with Manheim.
“I had good experiences with most of the auction houses, but Manheim stood out due to their position as an industry leader and my respect for many of the leaders there,” she said. “I was always impressed with Manheim and how they delivered on results and what they were able to deliver from a technology and data perspective.” The more soul searching she did and the more she learned about Manheim, the more interested she became in joining the company. Leaders from Manheim who she respected reached out to her about an open positions at the time she was ready to make a change. She made the move to Manheim in January 2017 and now leads national and regional commercial sales teams. The teams sell Manheim services to non-OEM-related commercial clients, such as banks, credit unions, rental car companies, and fleets. Her group sells Cox Automotive products as well as Manheim-specific auction services.
Asked what trends she is seeing in customer product requests, she answered, “People are very interested in data.” She mentioned Manheim Express, a mobile-app tool her company launched in March that offers dealers the ability to sell directly from their lots prior to moving the inventory to auction. Kline said her group would get involved with Manheim Express if Manheim offered the products to a commercial client.
Manheim offers its customers real-time data on vehicles as well as information about what types of sales are occurring in the industry. Many companies are interested in data-mining that information. “Where should they sell, where should they price, and how can they maximize values within their portfolio based off of what information is available: A lot of clients are inquiring along those lines.”
Staying on top of issues such as those is one reason Manheim joined IARA, and Kline replaced retiring Chuck Novince as Manheim’s IARA representative in February. But she had long been familiar with IARA since former ARI president Bob Graham introduced her to the organization several years earlier. Since then, she has always seen the value in the association. She is especially impressed with IARA’s certification and training programs. “Anytime we can help educate and escalate people’s knowledge and skillset and try to create some consistency across organizations, I think everyone benefits, and it validates the whole industry,” she said. She also likes that IARA helps promote issues that are important to consignors, through lobbying or representing consignors and the overall profession in coming up with industry guidelines. “I think IARA plays an important role in trying to promote industry-wide issues, taking a stand on those, and trying to lobby whichever organization has an influence.”
Board Member Spotlight: Amy Weisenburger
Amy Weisenburger of AutoVIN considers herself an early adopter of technology that the industry might not be ready for … yet.
By Daryl Lubinsky
Amy Weisenburger’s first job in the remarketing industry was with Walden Fleet Services, and after her colleague Brent Sergot started Marketwise Solutions, Weisenburger followed him to the remarketing company as its very first employee in the late 1990s. “That move completely changed my life and the course of my career, and I have never taken another job since,” Weisenburger said. She is now executive director of national accounts for AutoVIN, one of several companies for which she has worked through four different mergers and acquisitions. She was there through all the transactions, helping to integrate different companies with different cultures, systems, products, and services. So even though she has never accepted another job offer during that time, “I’ve had the opportunity to serve in many different roles every few years.”
As her career progressed, she began taking on a role of an early adopter, or “disrupter,” as she likes to describe it, working on programs and projects that might not have been popular at the time but that became more popular later on when the industry was ready. Her work as a disrupter accelerated after wholesale used car auction company Autodaq acquired Marketwise around 2000. Getting involved in the first wholesale online auto auction at a time when few people knew much about it was interesting to her. “We were trying to be something different, innovative, highly disruptive, and not popular,” she said. “It was a clear venture from the traditional wholesale auctions.”
She experienced some positive disruption of her career a short time later, when JM Family acquired Autodaq in 2005. She called it “a game changer” because JM Family “is absolutely one of the best companies to work for in this business.” She worked with JM Family’s CenterOne Financial Services and then for its financing and risk management products business, DataScan. Her time at DataScan brought out more of the disrupter in her as she worked on the consumer initiatives of Inspect My Ride and PRNDL “We got to do something very visionary, very innovative, and a little disruptive,” she said. Inspect My Ride offered direct-to-consumer inspections for buyers of vehicles through sites such as eBay, Cars.com, or AutoTrader. DataScan also created an end-to-end and fully virtual F&I experience called PRNDL, named after the parts of an automotive gear selector. Weisenburger described the program as “the total online experience” that offered services such as inspections, financing, warranties, and transportation for online vehicle buyers. But the program was too ahead of the game at the time, she said. “It’s interesting to me to see all these different companies now attempting to do the same thing that we were doing so many years ago but nobody was ready for.”
When remarketing services company AutoVIN acquired DataScan in 2015, Weisenburger went back to her roots of offering more traditional, field-based remarketing services. She now manages a team responsible for business development, legal and compliance, and client relationships in the United States and Canada. But she notes that another disrupter is coming to the forefront: self-inspections. Weisenburger is working with the AutoVIN Self-Inspect product, which is live in the marketplace today. Version 2.0, which is in development in partnership with AutoVIN’s sister company TradeRev, will incorporate artificial intelligence and client-specific excess wear and use pricing of damages. Being able to reduce inspection time to just a few minutes, which will have “huge ramifications for our field network, our company, [and] our industry, but most importantly, for our clients.” Hundreds of AutoVIN employees conduct inspections on-site now. “There is a lot of time and resource and expense in that, so what this technology means to us as an organization from an efficiency and technology standpoint is really exciting.”
That passion for the industry drew her to IARA, and she joined the association’s board of directors in late 2016. She has participated on the group’s education committee. But a desire to give back to the industry, as well as the IARA’s focus on consignors, was most important to her. “It’s an opportunity to network and stay close to the issues and industry topics that are important to my clients, ” she said. “The consignors are the industry from my perspective, and that’s what the IARA tried to do that was a little different than the average conference or event. We try to make sure the consignors are the focus. I think that’s important to who we are, and it was important to me when I decided to get involved.”
For the future, she plans to continue efforts to be an early adopter and pursue additional disruptive technology. “I’m a patient disrupter,” she said. “It’s all about timing. Sometimes the market is not ready for it, so you just have to be patient.”
Membership Committee Drives Member Growth
In an effort to encourage growth in membership, the International Automotive Remarketer Alliance’s (IARA) membership committee collected video testimonials from IARA members at the most recent Conference of Automotive Remarketing (CAR).
The membership committee co-chairs include Tom Francois of Badger State Auto Auction, Kim Hunt of Manheim, and the newest addition, Chris Clarke of ARI.
At CAR, about 15 IARA members were interviewed to discuss the benefits that they’ve gained from their IARA membership. The goal with these testimonial videos is to gain a resource that can be emailed to potential members, posted on IARA’s website and to various social platforms. The video is nearing completion, and once it’s finalized, it will be ready for distribution through IARA’s various platforms.
In terms of membership, IARA now has 210 members, which is an increase from the previous quarter. “It would be important to note that all members are encouraged to discuss IARA with consignors, service providers, and auctions that are not currently members. Any prospects should be funneled through the Membership Committee, to ensure the potential new member receives a phone call,” stated Kim Hunt, membership committee co-chair.
To join IARA or to renew your membership, go to
IARA.biz.
Registration for IARA 2018 Summer Roundtable Now Open
Registration for the 2018 IARA Summer Roundtable, which will be hosted at the J.W. Marriot in Marco Island on Aug. 21-23, is now open. The IARA has announced that Hall of Fame quarterback, Bob Griese, will keynote the event.
There are still some sponsorship opportunities for the Marco Island roundtable available, including spots for this year’s Tabletop Expo and in this year’s program guide. The IARA encourages any company interested in getting its name exposed to IARA's consignors to participate, before all sponsorship opportunities are gone.
Please contact Kim Glasscock for more information before all sponsorship opportunities are gone.
Glasscock can be reached at kglasscock@awardwinningevents.com and (615) 223-6656.
Click here for more information and to register.
Technology Committee Aiming to Boost IARA Audience Engagement
At this year’s IARA Spring Roundtable, the technology committee held a joint meeting with the social media committee to discuss methods to increase user engagment.One of the methods championed was better analyzing website metrics to identify areas where the IARA is doing well, and other areas of its website where it could improve, in order to increase engagement numbers.
Through collaboration with IARA’s social media committee, any changes made to the website will be shared through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The goal of this to boost the frequency of updates on social media to drive audience interaction to the IARA website. The IARA’s Systems and Communications Administrator, Sharon Sutton, will aid in this effort by finding usage logs of the audience visiting IARA’s website. Sutton will also help remove old or outdated information found on IARA’s website to ensure that all information found on the IARA’s website is current and still relevant.
The technology committee will also look at IARA’s website design, as it currently takes too long to get to news pertaining to the IARA. One method of addressing this that the committee is considering is recomposing the layout of the website to display that information sooner, according to Krishnamoorthy. Along with boosting user engagement on the IARA website, the technology committee is also looking at ways it can increase participation in the surveys that the IARA distributes to its members.
Looking ahead, the technology committee plans to collaborate with Bobit Business Media to find a few consignors to talk about the technological challenges that they have faced as an organization, and what they’re putting in place, in terms of technology, to overcome those challenges. Information gathered from these discussions will be published through IARA as a resource for members to gain insights from.
The technology committee also welcomes John Sullivan of GM Financial as a new co-chair. “I am excited to join Venkat Krishnamoorthy and Steve Solomon on the IARA Technology Committee as a Co-Chair. Technology has had such a huge impact on our daily productivity and continues to evolve quickly,” he said. “The IARA brings everyone together to share ideas on how this technology can be used to improve our business and I am looking forward to being a part of the discussion and application of these new in technologies in the remarketing industry.”
IARA Names 2018 Summer Roundtable Keynote Speaker
Hall of Fame NFL quarterback and longtime sportscaster, Bob Griese, will keynote the International Automotive Remarketer Alliance’s 2018 Summer Roundtable.
Griese is best known as “the thinking man’s quarterback” who led his team to a 1972 Super Bowl victory, capping off the only undefeated season in pro football history. Attendees will have a chance to meet Griese in person during a brief meet-and-greet session prior to his speech.
The annual conference takes place Aug. 21-23 at the newly renovated JW Marriott in Marco Island, Florida.
Registration with special room rates for attendees is open now at the event website. Early indicators point toward another record-setting conference according to IARA leadership.
