How TSI Helps Car Companies Use Data To Make Dealerships Perform Better
A company out of Moncton is using big data to help some of the biggest names in the automotive industry stay ahead of the curve.
TSI uses its software to help companies like Nissan, Mazda sort through their wide array of data to help determine and compare performance and trends among their Canadian dealerships.
“What we do is automate all the financial submissions for dealerships. Every month the dealerships have to report via financial statements to their OEM which is the Original Equipment Manufacturer, those are the automotive manufacturers, like the Nissan’s and the Mazda’s of the world,” says TSI CEO Jane Ravenshaw.
“All the OEMS have a similar process. They use the financials, in part, to see the strength of their dealer network. They’re looking at all of their dealers. They want to see if they have a weak dealer that is not selling what it needs to sell or if they have an open point, which is where there’s a new growth area in Canada and they need to insert another dealership there. They are looking at their total business performance and we provide them with the data they need to assess performance.”
TSI has two divisions – their automotive software division and a professional services division. This division used to be its own company in Moncton called TKS, until it was acquired by TSI in 2014. The professional services division focuses on IT consulting, software development and helping automate business processes for their clients, most of them local.
“Our people working in Moncton are still working with various local clients in Moncton,” said Ravenshaw.
But Ravenshaw says TSI’s main area of growth is with its automotive software division. Their products such as the TSI Core and TSI Echo allow auto manufacturers to compile and quickly sort through their data and find the useful intelligence they need to make smart business decisions.
“What we do is we pull in all of this data,” says Ravenshaw. “It’s a lot more complicated than you would think because every automotive company has a different way to report on financials. Financial statements are not standardized in the industry.
“What we’re able to do is pull all of this into our application and then we slice and dice this data in all different way so the OEMs or dealer groups can see how well their dealers are doing and how well their business is performing overall.”
TSI’s software can also collect other data feeds such as market share data and customer satisfaction data to bring into the reporting solution.
“Some of the OEMs give us 20 data feeds that we amalgamate so they can do all this reporting and analysis,” says Ravenshaw.
For example, this allows automotive manufacturers to see whether their best-performing dealers are the ones with the highest customer satisfaction, or to compare their dealerships in Atlantic Canada to those on the West Coast. The TSI software is customizable and allows the auto manufacturers to create different reports to get the data and intelligence they need about their dealerships and their business.
“Being able to look at the big picture of overall performance, but also able to drill down into all the details and troubleshoot if you have some problem areas,” says Ravenshaw.
TSI currently has seven Canadian auto manufacturers as clients. They also signed a large OEM in Australia, and have plans to further expand into the Australian market. From there, Ravenshaw says, TSI will be looking to expand into the United States.
The company has also just released a new product designed specifically for owners of dealer groups. TSI has two dealer groups using the product and are fully launching the project this summer to the Canadian market.
“Within the industry, what’s been happening over the last five or 10 years is you don’t have as many individual stores anymore. You have these dealer groups that are buying up Nissan stores, Toyota stores, Mazda stores,” says Ravenshaw.
“It’s like a medium-sized corporation, so we’ve come out with a product for the dealer group so they can compare their stores … We’ve come up with a common format so we can say, ‘how’s your Mazda store performing against your Nissan store, or against your Chrysler store?’ “
The automotive industry is an interesting space right now. With things like autonomous vehicles on the horizon and more people switching to electric vehicles and ride-sharing, Ravenshaw thinks we’re on the verge of major changes that will impact every aspect of the auto industry.
“There is going to be a major shift with electric vehicles, with autonomous cars and they’re saying by 2030, more cars are going to be sold for car-sharing and ride-sharing versus individual people buying cars. There’s going to be a very big shift in who is buying the cars,” she says.
“There’s going to be a big shift in terms of servicing them because, with electric vehicles, you’re not doing your oil changes, you’re not having all of these services that you have in a normal car. That’s going to drastically impact in terms of the service operations of the dealerships, which traditionally make more money than car sales … That’s going to be a really big deal.”
Ravenshaw says that’s why leveraging and tracking real-time data is crucial for car manufacturers.
“We will be able to help them look at what is going on in their network. It’s going to be really important not to be complacent and to stay ahead of it. Looking at what these trends are, forecasting, predicting what’s going on,” she says.
“People can say all of this will happen, but we don’t know exactly when. Is it going to be next year? Is it going to be five years? It’s it going to be 10? Is it going to be 15? That’s where TSI can help, being able to look for those trends. Before you’re in trouble we can help show the OEMs that this is a trend, this is really happening and this is how it’s affecting your profitability.”