A business strategy is a company’s high-level plan for executing on its vision. Many businesses, including most automotive dealerships, know what they want to achieve, but don’t have a plan for how to get there. A vision and a plan must come together to form a business strategy. Running a dealerships means you need to consider which tools your team will use in their businesses and how they will use them. And in today’s automotive retail environment, no tool has the ability to influence strategy more than the DMS. Here are three ways that you can leverage your DMS in the development and execution of a strategy.

Become Better, Faster, Stronger

Most dealership strategies call for the company to improve, enhance, or add a certain skill. Whatever that skill may be—customer service, transaction time, F&I sales, inventory turn time, or something else—your DMS is probably connected to it. That’s why it’s so crucial to utilize a modern DMS that promotes efficiency through better workflows and intuitive, easy-to-use interfaces. The right DMS can help your dealership get better, faster, or stronger at whatever it is you’re trying to improve.  As an added benefit, intuitive, easy-to-use systems enable dealerships to easily hire and retain the right people to execute on their strategies.

Gain the Freedom to Choose your Own Path

Your dealer management system functions as a technology hub and a central point of access for all other dealership technologies. Because it controls the flow of data between your dealership and its tools, it is a crucial component of your dealership strategy. In order to execute on your unique strategy, you need the freedom to choose your own tools. Many DMS platforms restrict third-party integrations and limit the number of vendors that you can work with. Restrictive platforms limit a dealership’s strategic options and make it difficult to achieve meaningful differentiation. Open platforms, on the other hand, let dealerships decide which third-party software systems best fit their strategic objectives.

Tracking, Reporting, and Metrics

In order to be successful, a dealership strategy must include a plan for tracking and reporting on metrics. Generally, a good strategy will require a company to set benchmarks and goals for improvements. Dealer management systems can provide both of these functions, allowing a dealership to track progress and adjust tactics accordingly. However, not all DMS platforms are created equal—modern systems provide real-time data allowing you to make better, faster business decisions.

Dealerships become successful by developing and executing on effective business strategies. Those strategies involve both a vision for success and a plan for achieving it. Because they touch almost every aspect of a dealership, DMS platforms can play a key role in the development and execution of dealership strategies. As you develop, refine, and execute on your strategy, be sure to evaluate your DMS and its ability to help you achieve success.

To learn more about how your DMS can better fit your dealership strategy, download our guide, “Was your DMS built for the digital age?”