Silicon Valley, eh?
Amid the flood of information that comes through our inboxes, once in a while something really stands out. At a time when so much is expected to change in the automotive customer experience and the tools that support the retail …
Category: Publisher’s letter
A formula for success with online events
Admit it, we’ve all done it. In fact, it’s probably the norm more than the exception. What am I referring to? Attending an online event, minimizing the browser window it’s playing in, and carrying on with other work while a …
Dealers will withstand the storm
For car dealers, this isn’t their first rodeo. They’ve lived through recessions and economic downturns of all shapes and sizes, OEM bankruptcies, onerous factory image overhauls and all manner of upheaval — and survived. But even by the standards of …
Black Lives Matter
The cover of this issue was designed to get your attention — so you would read this note. Amid all the upheaval and adjustments we’re making as a result of the pandemic, I felt it important to change focus for …
Save your pennies for the second wave
I love this time of year. It’s finally warm in Toronto, and no doubt across most of the country as well. Everything is green and growing; the picture of new, vibrant life. It’s a time of renewal. A time of …
Some notes for the next phase
The news is now dominated by questions around reopening and restarting the economy. That’s good. The economy can’t sustain the level of lockdown we’ve endured through April. Your businesses can’t sustain it, nor can mine. Here’s the challenge, as we …
Grow the conversation
I don’t know where to begin. But I need to say something, so here goes… Let me start with this: car dealers are the most creative, entrepreneurial, and community-minded group of people I have ever met. The situation we face …
Thanks. I’ll buy it at home.
Experiential retail. Direct-to-consumer commerce. Look for a lot of coverage on these two topics (closely linked topics, in fact) in Canadian auto dealer in coming issues. They are very important in terms of the current transformation of retail across categories. …
Remote service coming?
IKEA is on my mind. It should be on yours. I moved recently. And it got me thinking about remote service and the opportunity for dealers. We needed to get a bunch of new beds, as our move is combining …
It’s time to act
By now I imagine most of you have seen and read Driving the Road Ahead: A View into the Future of Canadian Automobile Retailing, the research paper published this past spring by the Canadian Automobile Dealers Association (CADA). This comprehensive …
Every business is a software business
This quote has been making the rounds widely in various forms, and is increasingly being touted as an obvious truth. And frankly I agree. It seems to have been first attributed to Watts S. Humphrey, an American pioneer in software …
Staying ahead of change
Products must continually evolve to remain relevant to the changing needs of their customers. Ideally, product designers will anticipate those needs and stay a few steps ahead of their customers. This is true of all products — including magazines. When …
