The DIS 2022 Agriculture Equipment Industry Trends Report is a comprehensive overview of what Ag dealers will be focusing on in 2022. This report compiles insights from surveys, Ag industry experts, and hundreds of Ag dealers across North America, to dealer prepare for the year ahead.
Dealership Digital Transformation in 2023 Agriculture Equipment Industry Trends Report
FOREWORD FROM THE GENERAL MANAGER
SHANE WALDEMAR General Manager, DIS
Technology doesn’t replace the human heart of what we do. It enhances it. It helps us form and maintain stronger relationships with our customers.
A digital movement is happening in the farm equipment dealer industry. In the thick of the first few waves of the pandemic, many dealers were forced to adjust their operations. Gathering restrictions, supply chain backlogs, and employee burnout all highlighted a need for greater efficiency in the service department, interacting with customers, and tracking productivity and profitability across every department. While many of us have been able to return to some semblance of normalcy in the past year, some things in the industry feel forever changed. I think many dealers who were hesitant to adopt certain technologies are recognizing the benefits now. We’re seeing amazing advancements in automation, communication, and analytics. But as much as some things change, some things remain the same. The industry continues to show incredible resilience in the face of many challenges. The Ag equipment dealership community is the kindest group of people I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. Our customer relationships are foundational to everything we do at DIS—and we know that for dealers, their relationships with their customers are just as important. Technology doesn’t replace the human heart of what we do. It enhances it. It helps us form and maintain stronger relationships with our customers. In this report, we share changes happening in the Ag equipment market and in the world of dealership technology to help dealers sow the seeds for a stable and profitable future. Here are some of the biggest trends we expect to impact Ag equipment dealers in 2023:
1. Key Farm Equipment Dealer Market Trends 2. Digitally Transformative Dealership Technology 3. Up in the Cloud
4. The Power of Dealership Data 5. Where Do We Go From Here?
Key Farm Equipment Dealer Market Trends
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It’s been an eventful year for the industry. The Agriculture Equipment market size exceeded USD 120 billion in 2021 and is projected to grow at a 10% CAGR from 2022 to 2028 . After the strain on equipment manufacturing in 2020 during the pandemic, the industry was able to recover in 2021 and 2022, despite ongoing supply chain backlogs. Rising demand for large, self-propelled machinery and, in general, an increased emphasis on mechanization in North American agriculture are some of the industry's major growth drivers. But due to ongoing supply shortages, the cost of equipment remains high. Here are some changes and trends happening in the Ag Equipment market.
INFLATION ACROSS THE NATION
Inflation is pushing prices in the global supply chain higher, and the cost of equipment has surged as a result. This challenge is compounded by labor shortages , due in part to low population growth, immigration policy, and retiring baby boomers with fewer people in younger generations interested in filling their roles. Many dealers will need to find ways to increase efficiency at their dealerships with the resources they currently have. Meanwhile, customers are looking toward autonomous machinery to boost their productivity. What’s more, rising fuel costs are driving customers to explore electrification sooner. HIGH DEMAND, SHORT SUPPLY
According to a DIS survey of Ag dealers across North America, 78% cited rising product prices as one of the biggest challenges they expect to face in the year ahead, and 62% cited rising interest rates.
Although it’s expected that current supply chain shortages will continue to impact the industry, industry experts are optimistic that stocking levels will improve over the course of 2023.
As many dealers still struggle with having enough surplus inventory, it’s especially important to leverage your dealer management system to do cycle counts, audit inventory, and smarter parts management. You can also utilize manufacturer inventory management programs to track accurate stocking levels. If you don’t have a DMS that integrates with your OEM inventory management program, it may be time to consider finding one that does.
I think we will continue to struggle with supply issues and as dealers will have to get more creative solving customer needs. I also feel a stronger digital presence will be required as our customers change how they do business.
PAT MCCRABB J.J. Nichting Co
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Historically, the high season for farm equipment dealers was the summer. But with farms covering more acreage and using more specialized equipment—equipment that needs skilled teams to service it— seasonality for dealers has become a year-round endeavor . To maintain strong, long-lasting partnerships with customers, dealers need to look beyond the sale and understand that after a unit has been sold, service becomes their main offering. Here are some ways you can keep revenue flowing year-round: EVERY SEASON IS HIGH SEASON Look for Additions Service Revenue (ASR): The farm equipment industry still hasn’t fully embraced the concept of planned maintenance. But one of the best ways to upsell service and reinforce customer trust is with a planned maintenance program. Create Inspection Lists: This is another area where the Ag industry is lagging. Checklists drive more business by identifying areas where service is needed, and higher customer satisfaction by demonstrating your dealership’s care and expertise when it comes to equipment maintenance. Enable Digital Approvals: Many dealerships are still sending paper quotes—or relying on verbal quotes. That leaves room for miscommunications and missed opportunities. But you can keep a reliable record of quotes, speed up the approval process, and create a more convenient experience by offering customers a digital quote for approval.
DEALERSHIPS ARE CONSOLIDATING According to Farm Equipment’s 2022 Big Dealer Report , big dealers owned 38% of total Ag stores in North America in 2022—an increase from 35% in 2021. There are a few forces at play here. For one, dealership owners who wanted to sell in 2020 may have postponed it until after pandemic restrictions loosened and are acting now. Another reason is that many dealership owners are aging and looking to sell. Kubota’s initiative to have additional stores that solely carry their brand has also led to a surge in major Kubota dealers (those who have five or more Ag sites).
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RENTALS ARE BOOMING
Interest rates can be expected to rise for the next 12-18 months, driving down the buying power of customers. Rental, leasing, and service will become key revenue drivers for dealers. With more new equipment landing in the 4th quarter of 2022 and returning to “normal” as OEM factories get caught up, more used equipment will be available on the market. Rental and used equipment will be an attractive option to customers looking to reduce the cost of farming. More dealers are also offering leasing and other “creative” financing options to make prices more palatable to customers because the cost of both new and used equipment is so high. According to a DIS survey of Ag dealers across North America, 47% of respondents offer rental equipment at their dealerships and an additional 6% plan on adding rentals to their roster in the year ahead. Meanwhile, 53% of respondents are planning to offer alternate financing options like leasing in the year ahead. If you are planning on launching or expanding your dealership’s rental operation, it’s important to right-size your rental fleet to address floor plan costs. STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS: YOUR DMS PROVIDER Your dealership management system can also be a key strategic partner to help you identify problems, develop solutions, and plan for the future. Find a DMS partner that isn’t shortsighted, giving you the lowest price, or selling you something cool in the system. Instead, find a partner who will work with what your long-term vision is and how aligns with your growth strategy.
STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS: YOUR OEMS Maintaining good relationships with OEMs is key to navigating the impact of supply chain shortages. Dealers should proactively renew partnerships with vendors and OEMs and work closely with them to project stocking needs and manage customer expectations. They should also talk openly about the status of supply and their needs and extend that courtesy to customers by clearly communicating and managing their expectations.
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Digitally Transformative Dealership Technology
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Digital transformation is the process of using digital technologies to create new - or modify existing - business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet changing business and market requirements. This reimagining of business in the digital age is digital transformation. SALESFORCE
Technology like mobile apps, SMS, and self- service portals have become standard for a lot of industries, and customers, especially Millennials and Gen Z, expect them.
SHANE WALDEMAR General Manager at DIS
Farm equipment dealership service departments are moving from paper and whiteboards to computers and digital records. Digital transformation is about getting away from older technologies and looking at how we’ve changed as consumers. For example, look at how smartphones and apps have changed us as consumers and the way we manage our day-to-day lives. Digital transformation is not new—it’s been shaping and changing virtually every industry. But Ag equipment dealerships and in particular, their service departments, are undergoing a digital movement. THERE ARE 8 KEY AREAS WHERE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS HAPPENING AT FARM EQUIPMENT DEALERSHIPS: Infrastructure: To facilitate digital transformations, your dealership needs the infrastructure to support it—specifically, internet bandwidth. Every device brought into the dealership uses the internet. But if the internet is slow, then it can’t transfer information quickly enough to meet the demands of your business. Getting the infrastructure in place increases your ability to deliver information to your customer more quickly and improve their experience. Mobile: Customers are already accustomed to using their mobile devices for shopping, thanks to services like Amazon. Recognizing that, it’s important for dealerships to start using tools and processes that are mobile-friendly because that’s what customers expect. Another as- pect to consider is optimizing your website for mobile devices. This ensures that your custom- ers can access your website on any device. Communication: The first thing you can do to be more proactive in your communication with customers is to observe your service team’s shop walkthroughs. During these walkthroughs, check in with technicians at each bay to get the status of a service repair and if an update to the customer is needed. This gives you proactive communication from the service technicians in the shop, or in the field, that you can translate to the customer. Text messaging is an effective way to create communication touchpoints with customers not only when their unit is being repaired, but before and after the sale too. According to a DIS survey of Ag dealers across North America, 35% of respondents are already using text messaging to send service status updates, marketing promotions, and more—and 32% plan to use text messaging in the year ahead.
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Digital Workflow: Paper is still the main tool used at the dealership but think about the technician who’s at the furthest bay. That technician must stop, clean up, and then walk all the way to the service office. Don’t forget the return trip too. Give your technicians tools to send information to the service office more efficiently, such as using their mobile devices. Digital Timesheets: Digital timesheets reduce errors and discrepancies, especially as it re- lates to warranty work orders. They allow technicians to input the exact time on the clock. If they can clock it on a mobile device, then even better. The technician doesn’t have to run back to the dealership or have someone else run to the computer to clock in their job. In fact, with the labor time rounding built into DIS, you can even have a few minutes of time automatically added to applicable labor billing segments, further improving the departmental results. Monitoring: When service managers monitor their techs and workloads, they use large whiteboards, excel sheets, and some digital dashboards. But even those spreadsheets and dashboards won’t show you when a technician goes over the allotted job time. Having an app or website allows you to take your phone to monitor and understand what technicians are doing, and to assign another technician to help if needed. Planning: A digital planning solution—ideally one with job queuing based on technician skill and availability—will give you visibility into one or more weeks at a time to manage and schedule technicians and their work orders. Having a multi-week planning tool also gives vis- ibility into the current week and several weeks after. This allows service managers to account for and plan for proper coverage if a technician is away. Direct Messaging: Imagine a world where service employees aren’t taking or making phone calls all day long, dealing with the salesman who wants to know what’s going on with the ser- vice work order, or dealing with someone who’s dropping off a piece of equipment and waiting for a technician to discuss some information with them. Having a tool that can directly update customers about the status of their equipment will save your technicians time and enable your team to address any issues that come up sooner.
Before, we had a box on the side of each workstation where I would physically drop the paper into and write whatever notes I needed to write on there. But one benefit is that the phone is now their box. So instead of dropping physical papers in there, I drop that card on their phone and that becomes their box.
Live video service support and texting from within [your] business system are already market standards.
ALLAN MARTIN Maple Lane Farm Service
ROBY DUGGAN Service Manager at Plevna Implement
READ THE FULL INTERVIEW
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The old saying is that we can sell them out the front door, but where we keep the customer returning is what happens behind the firewall. Parts and service are the meat on the bone to a wholegood sale. However, for a service department to improve, they need the parts and sales departments to improve also. Without all these department leaders working in harmony, you can't get over 100% absorbed. And that’s where every dealership needs to be to weather the seas of changes. Today, you can easily find the best practices of operating a high-performance service department in written docs found online and through numerous meeting venues and offerings from independent trainers and consultants. Knowing what to do is always the first step; implementing these ideas into day-to-day practices is yet another journey. Every interaction between a customer and your dealership creates a moment of truth, or a touch point as I call it. Your competition isn't just the dealer down the street anymore. You are competing with every service provider your customer comes in contact with, and they are constantly comparing you to others. Just like the telephone, emails and texts are vital communication tools to master. When proactively handled with care and professionalism, they can differentiate you from your competition. Are you meeting or exceeding the customers’ expectations? It can be that simple. A challenge moving forward will be influencing all these interactions by planning to improve the customer's experiences with your organization. Customers are smarter and more informed today. A dealership's front-line staff has to be more than just someone who knows how to repair equipment or open or close a work order. Every front-line employee can make every interaction one that exceeds the customers' expectations. The skill sets for front-line people have changed dramatically. Those who hire the right people then implement soft and hard skill training while creating a learning culture will continue to be what separates the good from the great dealerships.
FLOYD JERKINS Executive Coaching Past Founder, and President of Jerkins Creative Consulting
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IS YOUR BUSINESS E-COMMERCE READY? Consumers have been shopping online for over a decade now, and many people are used to starting their search online. They expect businesses to have a full online presence, including an up-to-date website, active Facebook and Google Business pages, online catalogs, and website chat buttons. According to a DIS Survey of Ag dealers across North America, 45% of respondents have an online catalog that is up to date , but an equal number of respondents do not currently have a catalog on their website. Not having an online presence is a missed opportunity. It is an easy and effective way of piquing customer interest and interacting with your business. These days, everyone is looking for the “Amazon Experience.” They want convenience, the ability to purchase parts when the dealership is closed, an accurate estimate on delivery and service, and communication throughout the sales and service cycles. An up-to-date website and communication automation through channels like email, text messaging, and website chat will be crucial in creating a seamless experience at your dealership.
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SELF-SERVICE PORTALS
Customers expect to be communicated to on the right channels. That means frequent communication in the form of email and text message notifications.
Customers expect round-the-clock access to businesses via the web. While your team may not have the capacity to provide 24-hour service, you can keep service moving along smoothly by offering customers the ability to request service online. Self-service portal platforms, like DIS MyPortal, make it easy for customers to request service or ask for help online, and for your team to answer queries and create work orders within the portal.
SHANE WALDEMAR General Manager at DIS
Learn more about DIS MyPortal.
INTEGRATED DEALER MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE
To meet the technological demands of today’s consumers, your business management technology needs to fully integrate all areas of your dealership. Information needs to flow freely between each department—financials, customer records, work orders, and more. That’s where an integrated DMS with built-in automation capabilities can have a huge impact on your dealership’s efficiency and productivity.
What services processes would you like to automate? How dealers responded:
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Technician scheduling
Parts receiving
Planned maintenance scheduling
Status updates
Invoicing
Parts ordering
Analytics reporting
Source: DIS Survey
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AUTOMATED PLANNED MAINTENANCE How does your dealership currently keep track of when customers need to bring in their equipment for service? If the answer is a clipboard or a spreadsheet, you can automate and streamline the process with planned maintenance. By setting up automatic reminders for service work orders, based on time or meter readings, you can schedule more service visits and create a reliable source of recurring revenue With a tool like DIS Planned Maintenance, dealers can create service agreements directly in their DMS, set automated reminders for service, and keep a digital service schedule.
Learn more about DIS Planned Maintenance.
Planned Maintenance often goes underutilized in the equipment industry, even though it offers numerous benefits from the customer’s perspective in terms of maintenance cost and asset life, and from the dealership’s perspective in terms of service revenue and labor recovery. Even without full OEM guidance, in terms of standard jobs and schedules, every dealership can recognize well defined, repeatable service activity. Such activity can be presented to customers in the following ways: • Reduced Maintenance Costs – Preventative maintenance plans catch and repair small problems before they turn into large, costly service jobs. • Extended Service Life – Equipment that is maintained in good working order has a longer service lifetime with fewer ‘down’ periods, showing an advantage in hours per year and total hours before replacement. • Reduced Operator Downtime – Equipment that is out of service can leave operators inactive and can contribute to an issue with morale and perception of equipment quality. • Improved Safety – Preventing equipment failures also has the benefit of improving the safety of operators and workers in proximity to that equipment. All of this certainly applies to Dealership fleets as well. An internal-focused Planned Maintenance program will lend these benefits for rental equipment and similar dealership assets. In addition, such programs offer other benefits to the dealership in terms of contact with customers and driving new service opportunities: • Scheduled Customer Contact – Preventative maintenance plans drive regular outreach to customers as service is due. • New Service Estimation – Planned maintenance work provides the opportunity to detect and suggest service that falls outside the maintenance plan, and encourages customers to discuss additional equipment in need of service or replacement. • Well Defined Jobs – Planned maintenance work that can be well defined by the dealership can be reviewed for efficiency and fine-tuned for profitability. Whether seasonal or year-round, and whether driven by OEM guidance or defined by the expertise and experience of the dealership, planned maintenance programs should be part of dealership service strategy.
PHILLIP CONOPHY Development Manager at DIS
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03.
Up in the Cloud
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If your dealership is still running on an on-site server, this is the year to upgrade to the cloud. According to a Gartner report , 85% of businesses will migrate from on-premise to cloud hosting by 2025. This trend is also reflected in the DIS survey of Ag dealers across North America, in which 66% of respondents said they are already using cloud hosting. But many dealers are reluctant to make the switch. According to the same survey, 27% of respondents are not currently on cloud and don’t plan on switching in the year ahead. For some, it’s because they worry moving to cloud computing will be expensive. Others are simply used to their on-premises server and aren’t sure they can trust their system to be hosted by a third party. But there are some major benefits to adopting cloud computing at your dealership. HERE ARE SOME OF THE BIGGEST REASONS WHY DEALERS ARE MAKING THE SWITCH TO CLOUD HOSTING:
Server Security: In Q3 of 2021 alone, ransomware attacks rose by over 140% . Small to medium-sized businesses, especially those that host their servers on-premises, face the greatest risk. But no business is immune, and several major OEMs have been targeted by ransomware in the last year. Moving to a third-party cloud service provider gives you the benefit of having your system protected by their security measures. Cloud providers are responsible for monitoring system security, performing regular backups, and routinely updating the system to protect it against new threats. Cloud environments are also safer because the cloud server is segmented from the user’s workstation. Typically, hackers enter a network using phishing or social engineering threats via the user’s workstation, rather than at the server level. Because cloud servers are segmented from the user’s workstation, it makes it harder for hackers to enter via the corporate network where the data is held.
One of the most common questions that people have is why do hackers hack me? They’ll say, ‘my company is small, I don’t have as much money as them attacking somebody else. Why do they attack my company?’ The answer is most of the time it’s just that you were randomly selected. You were a victim of opportunity. The scammers, the social engineers, are literally sending out tens of millions of phishing emails every day and hundreds of millions of malware programs trying to break in and on that particular day – if you got hacked – it’s because you or somebody else around you accidentally responded to a social engineering email and you clicked on a link that you shouldn’t have clicked on or you didn’t have your software patched and a malware program came by and tested that particular vulnerability. So, the vast majority of people that are hacked, it really was just random – almost accidental – but they [the hackers] were able to break in.
ROGER A. GRIMES Data-Driven Defense Evangelist at Knowbe4
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Saves Your Staff Time: Maintaining your own on-premises server takes time. You need to handle the maintenance, backups, and updates yourself. Not to mention, if your system goes down, you’re the one that has to figure out how to fix it. That means staffing someone to maintain the server, hiring a third-party person to repair it, or pulling one of your more tech-savvy team members off their regular work to find a solution. By entrusting a cloud provider, you get the benefit of having their team on-call to address any system interruptions. They will also be responsible for keeping your system up to date.
Reduced Server Costs: As you already know, servers aren’t cheap. You can end up sinking a lot of money into maintaining and updating your server. First, there’s the cost of hardware—many dedicated servers are rented for $100 to $200 per month. Servers over 3 years old have a 10% probability of failure and that number jumps to 20% by year 7. This means you should be replacing your server every 3-5 years. Then, there’s the cost of software updates. You need to make sure your security software is up to date, your data is backed up, and your disk space isn’t full. That kind of maintenance takes a lot of time and money. If you’ve got an IBM Maintenance Contract, you know how hard it is to get on and expensive to keep. If you don’t have an IBM Maintenance Contract or adequate security measures in place, your server is a sitting duck for cybersecurity threats.
Faster Disaster Recovery: When you’re responsible for backing up your own system, it can be easy for backups to fall to the wayside. After all, you’ve got a lot going on every day at your dealership and backing up data is tedious. But if you don’t regularly back up your data, you can pay the price later if your system goes down. With so many floods, tornadoes, and storms in recent years, dealers who are maintaining their servers on premises are at a huge risk of losing their data. When your data is hosted in the cloud, your data is backed up in real-time. That will help your system can get back up and running much faster, with up- to-date information.
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Flexibility: When your system is hosted in the cloud, you can access your system from anywhere with an internet connection. That means you can access customer records in the field, manage ongoing service, order parts, and more—without needing to be at your workstation. There are ways to remote-desktop a mobile device into your server (maybe you’re already doing this)—but that approach isn’t secure. It’s much easier for hackers to enter your network via remote desktop connections.
Scales with your Business: Using servers to store your data and processes will become more costly as your business grows. This is because larger hardware with more processing power will be needed to prevent the system from being overtaxed as new information and data are stored on the server. With the cloud, you don’t need to worry about hardware costs or overburdening your system – it grows with your business needs. That means downsizing is as easy as scaling up.
We made the decision to go to a cloud network when we needed to purchase a new AS400 so instead of shipping it back and forth, we went with DIS and put it in the data center. It allowed us to get up and running much faster, it was a good time to make that decision because DIS has all the hardware and you don’t have to deal with the shipping time and problems that occur waiting for it when it’s in transit and then setting it up in your store. When we pulled the trigger on cloud hosting at the time, we were four stores and what happened several times is if we lost power, or our fiber connection was cut, we realized we were shutting down the entire company hosting it ourselves. With cloud, no catastrophe at any one store would impact the others. It gave us the continuity to be able to keep our business moving forward in the event of a flood, power outage, or other disasters. At the main store where we had it – even though we had a large generator, there would still always be a delay. We would lose that connection which would knock everyone else off the system too, so that was part of the reason why we switched. With cloud hosting and cloud backup, you don’t have to worry about the employee taking tapes offsite or worst case, just using the tapes. As businesses grow and get bigger and bigger, the more valuable those backups become, and the business can keep carrying on. We all buy insurance for not wanting to use them and using cloud hosting and backup is a cheap alternative.
JASON COLLINS Lansdowne-Moody
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The Power of Dealership Data
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There have been significant advancements in the data analytics tools offered by DMS providers. As opposed to expensive and clunky third-party analytics tools, you can leverage real-time analytics within your DMS in a way that suits your specific business. You can more accurately monitor and analyze the key performance indicators that are important to you as an Ag dealer when your DMS provider understands your unique business needs and metrics. TRACK THE RIGHT DEALERSHIP SUCCESS METRICS More Ag dealers are using data to better monitor dealership performance, project sales, and plan equipment and parts ordering numbers. But tracking so much data can lead to data overload. It’s not enough to just track data—you need to track the right data and know how to interpret it to have a real impact on your dealership’s performance. If you aren’t measuring your success, you’re relying on gut feelings and opinions to make decisions. But if you’re tracking the wrong metrics, your insights won’t be much better. Here are essential metrics you should be tracking in each department of your dealerships.
Owner/GM: • Total Invoice Revenue per Day • Total Invoice Gross Profit per Day • Total Invoice Gross Percentage per Day • New Customers per Day • Customer Payments Made per Day • Total Number of Invoices per Day • Inventory Adjustments per Day • Average Revenue per Invoice per Day • Average Profit per Invoice per Day Parts: • Total Invoice Revenue per Day • Total Invoice Gross Profit per Day • Total Invoice Gross Percentage per Day • Number of Parts Invoices per Day • Average Revenue per Invoice per Day • Parts Revenue per Manufacturer • Back-Ordered Parts per Manufacturer • Average Gross Profit per Invoice per Day • Fill Rate per Day Rentals: • Financial Utilization • Time Utilization • Average Rental Rate • Washout Percentage (at end of life) • Maintenance to Income Ratio
Service: • Total Invoice Revenue per Day • Total Invoice Gross Profit per Day • Total Invoice Gross Percentage per Day • Average Work Order Completion Time
• Recovery Rate per Day • Labor Efficiency per Day • Effective Labor Rate per Day
• Average Service Revenue per Invoice per Day • Average Service Profit per Invoice per Day
Sales: • Total Invoice Revenue per Day • Total Invoice Gross Profit per Day • Total Invoice Gross Percentage per Day • Wholegood Revenue per Manufacturer
• Wholegood Revenue per Category • Wholegood Revenue per Sales Rep • Wholegood Gross Profit per Sales Rep • Wholegood Gross Profit Percentage per Sales Rep • Average Revenue per Invoice per Day
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TRACKING TECHNICIAN EFFICIENCY AND RECOVERY Technician Efficiency and Technician Recovery are core metrics that lend insight into a dealership’s service organization. Between the staffing challenges throughout the industry and the ongoing struggles with supply, measurements like these that can help guide the operation are increasingly valuable. Both metrics are discussed throughout the industry, and there are certainly regional, seasonal, and market concerns that drive those discussions. Even so, the first task in any of these discussions for the dealership is to find those measurements.
Broadly speaking, Technician Efficiency compares the time a technician clocks against a work order and against the time the customer is billed for that work order. Technician Recovery compares the time a technician clocks against billable work orders and against the total time for which that technician is paid. Once the dealership has those core measures in hand, they can be part of many different comparisons and analyses, as well as set departmental, team, and individual performance goals. This analysis can be applied by types of documents, by technician teams, or by region in ways that make those measurements more accurate and more useful to individual dealer needs.
No matter how the measurement choice is made, interpreting the results will also be specific to the dealer’s needs because different markets, regions, and seasons may set very different targets from one measure to the next. Gathering these metrics and providing dealership staff with a means to explore the numbers behind them are valuable components of your dealership management system. The powerful tools that the system offers enable the dealership to concentrate on managing the service department with the added insights that these measurements provide.
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WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?
"To be a farmer is to be a student forever, for each day brings something new." – John Connell Some of the challenges we’re facing won’t be tied up with a neat bow in 2023—supply shortages, labor shortages, natural disasters, cybersecurity, and other risks will persist. But technology creates opportunities for dealers to face those challenges head-on, so they can continue to thrive for years to come. The farm equipment industry is changing, with many dealers embracing technology that modernizes all areas of the dealership. But with change comes uncertainty—can we still preserve the parts that are foundational to the relationships, and the hearts and souls, of our businesses? We believe we can. Technology offers tools to help your business endure, and as technology becomes more advanced, those tools are honed. Your dealership management system provider should be your strategic partner, helping you navigate challenges in the market and identifying areas of your business operations that could be improved with technology. DIS is proud to be a trusted partner to agriculture equipment dealers since 1980. Our system was built by dealers for dealers, tailored to your processes and operational standards. We are a team of dealer industry experts who consider it our honor to help dealers sow the seeds for a stable and profitable future.
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CULTIVATE LONG-TERM GROWTH AND STABILITY WITH A FULLY INTEGRATED DEALERSHIP MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
LEARN MORE ABOUT DIS TODAY
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1-800-426-8870 www.discorp.com
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