Like any other type of activity, the auto business has its own specifics. If your company is engaged in the sale or service of cars, you are dealers or intermediaries, and you want to increase the efficiency of your business, use one of the most powerful tools – consulting for the auto business.
What Is Consulting?
Consulting is consulting companies, managers, and management personnel on legal, financial, investment, and other issues. Experienced specialists act as consultants. The main goal of consulting is to solve a particular problem in business and achieve the set goals.
When an entrepreneur is just starting business, he almost inevitably faces a variety of tax, financial, and marketing challenges. As activities scale, the number of problems increases: how best to dispose of the profit received, how to attract investors, in which direction to develop the product.
The word “consulting” is derived from the “consult”, which defines the essence of the term. Consulting involves the provision of paid advice from an expert on various business issues.
The goal of consulting is to improve certain business indicators: profitability, efficiency, liquidity, market value. A company that does not have the necessary specialists on its staff turns to outside experts for advice.
Consulting tasks can be different, for example:
● Help in drawing up a business plan.
● Comprehensive development of a marketing strategy.
● Correct positioning of the company in the market.
● Implementation of marketing tools into the existing business model.
● Analysis of business, niche, target audience, company product.
● Maintenance of complex transactions and the execution of profitable contracts.
● Optimization of current business processes.
● Reducing costs and losses at all levels.
● Improving the quality of organization management.
● Drawing up a financial forecast for the company.
Consulting is needed to help a business effectively solve emerging or forecasted problems, eliminate erroneous decisions, and achieve planned goals.
How Does It Work with the Automotive Industry?
The consulting companies help automotive customers analyze the impact of major industry trends on their businesses. Automotive strategists have deep expertise and experience and are active in major automotive markets around the world. They use specialized diagnostics, toolkits, and benchmarks to help clients develop strategies and prioritize. Automotive engineering consultants also help determine how and when to apply new approaches, products, and ways of working, and how to more effectively translate new ideas into concrete actions.
Usually, the work spans the entire automotive value chain, from corporate strategy and shareholder value creation to functional efficiency programs and full-scale organizational redesign.
Challenges in the Auto Industry
In the auto market, competition is constantly growing. Increasing sales for the auto business is becoming more and more challenging. Companies need to promptly receive accurate and complete information. Particular attention is paid here to the profitability of the car brand and brand in the overall structure of the business portfolio.
Any wrong management decision can lead to a significant drop in profits, an increase in costs, and a decrease in business dynamics. Special attention is required to all the details of the business. A new high-quality level of management is needed, which can only be achieved by automating the auto business.
The high growth rate of operating expenses leads to the fact that many players in the market today are unprofitable.
Lack of liquidity is associated with the growth in the number of branches and stores. The danger of going too far and starting to finance investment activities from working capital is quite high.
Feasibility Study from Consulting
A feasibility study is a business plan that does not include any marketing analysis. The fact is that most customers do not need this, since they apply to the company with an already formed vision of the future paint and body shop and having data on the potential demand for body repair services in the region. In the process of performing a feasibility study, most of the factors affecting the work of the paint and body shop are taken into account, starting with the system of taxes and deductions, various lending and leasing schemes, and ending with the level of inflation in the region. The feasibility study allows you to create a model of the future enterprise, laying in it the planned profitability indicators, the personnel motivation system, indicators of the dynamics of the enterprise development. As a result of the feasibility study, the customer receives a detailed concept for the financial development of the paint and body shop with the definition of planned economic performance indicators, the calculation of the return on investment, and an assessment of the net real value of the project in the medium term.
Obviously, a feasibility study requires high-qualified engineers who can cope with the task of any complexity. The question “How to hire world-class engineers” becomes of high importance but thanks to international engineering platforms it isn’t a problem anymore. Familiarize yourself with engineering platforms to be aware of all opportunities.
Express Audit from Consulting
The main purpose of the express audit is to assess the efficiency of the painting and body shop by key indicators. Since most of the key indicators do not depend on the size of the paint and body shop, the express audit format includes a comparison of various paint and body shops with each other, as well as with the market average. An express audit is carried out within one day of the company’s consultant’s work on the territory of the customer’s paint and body shop, with the subsequent processing of the received initial data within three working days. As a result of an express audit, a body painting shop receives an assessment of its effectiveness in terms of key indicators, a calculation of potential, an assessment of the qualifications of production personnel, a comparative analysis of key indicators with indicators of other workshops on the market for body repair and painting services, and finally, general recommendations for optimization of production processes based on the analysis of key indicators, working documentation of the enterprise and the results of interviewing the personnel of the paint and body shop. The service of conducting an express audit among dealerships is especially in demand, which thus makes it possible to compare the paint and body shops of the dealer network with each other according to key indicators that do not depend on the size of the enterprise.
