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Information and a Call to Action

Information and a Call to Action.

 

Recently we did a Podcast with Mets Kramer where we talked about the “Digital Dealership.” Then we had a Candid Conversation with Ryszard Chciuk on his work experiences in Poland over the past forty years. Then I caught up with Ed Gordon and we talked about “Job Shock” which is his passion. All of this takes me to Data and Information.

Over my lifetime we have gone from “Data” Processing to “Information” Technology. We have changed the name but I am afraid to say we have changed little else. I remember mounds of paper with all manner of data on them. No Information. Today I still see mounds of Data and perhaps a bit more Information. However, I don’t see, from either the Data or the Information, any call to action.

I recently reread a book by George Friedman and his team called “The Intelligence Edge” with a subtitle of “How to Profit in the Information Age.” It was written in 1997. Sadly, I don’t see much in the way of success in the Industries in which I work to have learned enough about this subject. We have made incredible strides in how we have transformed data into information. I myself can attest to that truth. However, what knowledge have we gained from all of this information?

Looking back, I suspect that we have become over-sensitized from the pains of the early 1980s when inflation ran away and then tandem of Ronald Reagan and Paul Volker finally got us out of the inflation bubble by inflicting high interest rates on us. That transformed most of the Capital Goods world by a rather shortsighted solution of reducing headcount. I know it was necessary for us to be able to survive with such punitive interest rates, however, in many ways, we are still suffering the consequences of that action. We don’t have enough people. I have seen altogether too many dealerships that focus on headcount. I am coming to believe that the result of this action is like cutting off your leg and telling your mother how successful you have been at losing weight. Yes, it is true that you weigh less than you did but you now have to function with only one leg. Hardly as effective as functioning with two legs.

I see the same thing in how we operate today with information. First of all, most of the information we get is Financial Information. While I agree that the financials are important. Yet they tell us about things that have happened but much about where we are today nor where we are going. Yet where is the Management Information that we need? Where do I find Market Share from the Parts Business or the Service Business? Where do I find the replacement schedules of equipment working in the field? I don’t see that Information anywhere in the dealerships.

Which people on the payroll are doing that research? Who is working with that information to deliver it to the leadership of the departments and the dealerships? Does the leadership get early warnings of things to come or the necessary action to take? I don’t see these employees in any of the dealers that I have been around. Sure, there are Marketing Departments. But I don’t see them providing this information. I see them maintaining websites and perhaps newsletters. Important work I agree but there is more to marketing than advertising and trade shows. I am talking about what the book calls “Intelligence.” Yes, like the CIA. Information gathering, creating processes and systems to collect and collate and consolidate information. Then to produce this information as a form of intelligence that can be acted upon.

“The Mortal Enemy of Intelligence is Time and Wishful Thinking.” This is a famous Friedman quote. He goes further in the book. “The ability to see the consequences of actions clearly, even when the perception run counter to conventional wisdom, requires courage and a willingness to be alone.” This is the struggle of the “Pioneer” isn’t it? The people who go out front. Blaze a new trail to somewhere. It takes courage to go off into the unknown. “Sometimes it requires courage to be wrong.” That might mean in the sense of the Pioneers, their death. Without them, however, where would we all be today?

Let me bring this thought process to an end this way from the book. “The will to believe that what the facts reveal, and the courage to act on those facts, is the foundation of success in all endeavors.”

I believe it is time we set up Intelligence thinking in every department and every dealership. Find the data and transform it into information. Then use that information in combination with intelligence to take action and strive to succeed.

The time is now.

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The Power of Information

The Power of Information

When I was in University, we had a computer room on the top floor of the main building. Somewhere through the first year some students, for one reason or another, took over the computer room and threw all the data cards out the window to cascade down on the streets and be lost forever. That was all of the data for student records and other University data. Imagine that? How would you make out if all of your data was lost like that?

The problem, in my mind, is that there are very few in the parts and service business that would be able to tell you that their data is secured. Imagine that? Some of us have had to recreate systems that had checkpoint recovery. This is a system where all of the data on the system files are backed up at a check point. Perhaps every five minutes. When the system went down you had to try and recover the last transactions and re-enter them to the system.

How would you make out today if that happened to you? Let’s take a different turn and talk about the records for our customers. The name and address, the machine ownership, the calls, the likes and dislikes, and call history for instance. How are those records kept and secured? I will hazard a guess that your sales force knows about THEIR customers, but the Company not so much. Not a very good position to find yourself in at any time let alone today.

Marketing data is every bit as important as financial data or parts and service transactions yet we don’t do much about it at all. Instead we have executives and managers that do it all according to their experience and abilities. We have very powerful algorithms established to manage parts inventories and standard time and flat rating. Yet we do things for marketing, managing the equipment sales force and market coverage in a rather casual, this is the way it is done manner.

Someone once told me that the market leader does not want change. They have things under control. It is the businesses that are trying to grow that have to change the paradigm. They have the rattle the status quo. That couldn’t be truer nor more important to change than today.

We need to have better data to make good decisions is a common statement. I don’t agree with that at all. We need to have good data, that I agree with, however, we need to have good information to make good decisions not data.

What about our employees? What do you know about them? What kind of data do you keep on them? Of course, there is payroll history, and then there are letters in the file recording poor behavior, perhaps you have performance reviews. But what do you know about them? Your employees are the people that bind your customers to your business. Do you have enough of them to do the job you are asking them to do? You probably understand that personnel expense is the highest expense that you have and you try to keep it as low as possible. Even if it means that you over tax your employees.

What I am asking is very simple. What do you do with the information that you have to have to run your business?

  • Is it secure?
  • Can it be recreated?
  • Do people control the planning and operation of your business based on their knowledge and experience? Or do they rely on data and statistics and information?
  • Do you know as much about your customers as your sales team?

Please take this seriously as it is a serious situation. Please think about this. Your current and future success depends on it.

The Time is Now.