Where are the digital transformation opportunities and growth opportunities for Chinese automakers and dealers, and how can they survive in the red sea?

Digitalization has changed every aspect of our lives: the way we access information, the way we communicate, the way we shop, and every aspect of clothing, food, housing, and transportation. The incredible power of digitization is increasingly changing business models.

The pace of innovation and a company's willingness and ability to change is therefore a key success factor in the industry. In order to seize the opportunity of rapid change in the automotive industry, automakers and dealers must restructure all aspects of the industry, from the value chain to user connectivity, the user service system, and the user business system. If they want to increase their business value and business competitiveness, companies must adopt digitally driven innovative technologies and systems.

The global neotubular epidemic in early 2020 can be described as an unusually severe impact on the automotive industry. For traditional dealerships, there is a crisis and a challenge: both new cars and after-sales, a sharp decline in the number of customers who come to the store to buy and maintain their cars, and a huge financial challenge.

Part 1: Auto dealers: How to combine digitalization with differentiated services

The epidemic will accelerate the reshuffling and concentration of offline auto dealers - all types of dealers are facing unprecedented challenges as a result of the epidemic, and those who have had tighter cash flows in the past will be even more traumatized. Fixed costs such as rent and staff wages are difficult to pay, and the survival environment of small dealers has worsened, while large dealers are also facing losses and have lowered their revenue expectations. The continuation and spread of the epidemic will also accelerate the increase in the concentration of offline car dealers, poorly run dealers to withdraw from the network or transition, this market will be more profitable, service capacity of the dealers to take over. Relatively speaking, the management and operation of these dealers is more standardized, the service is more quality, and also has a stronger anti-risk ability.

Online car sales from the true maturity of there is still much room for improvement - from employees to customers, temporary transformation of online live sales consultants realize that car sales is by no means the offline car sales directly to the online live so simple. Whether you're selling a new car or a used car, online live is not a one-on-one explanation and service for the user, so the sales consultant needs to have a stronger control of the sales process in the sales process. How to control the rhythm of interaction in the online interactive process, with the help of multimedia means to attract customer attention, especially in terms of automotive expertise, the live consultant puts forward higher requirements. Many online business to ensure that the user for the dealer's stickiness and basic sales leads, sales business to achieve, the marketing effect is often poor, the temporary transformation of online live, from offline and online marketing methods, interaction, sales process and rhythm of the difference is also a huge challenge to the consultant to sell cars way.

Auto dealers offline stores will not be subverted, the integration of online and offline is the way of the long term - the future of the offline 4S dealers, whether it is a new car sales or used car sales, the customer experience of the offline stores, customer service, are online can not be replaced by the resources. In addition to actively strengthening their online customer acquisition capabilities, auto dealers with quality digitalization capabilities can only improve their marketing and services by combining them with the strengths of their offline stores. In the long run, online automobile live broadcasting and marketing is more about helping marketing to acquire customers and obtaining leads, and ultimately it is necessary to invite them to the store, test drive, sign, and close the deal. Both online and offline forms of experience, integration of online and offline marketing of automotive marketing and service forms, will also be more dealers as a digital transformation strategy focus on thinking.

Improving data operationalization capabilities is an opportunity for dealers' digital transformation .

From the point of view of the operation status quo, both online and offline have their own pain points, whether it is a new car or used car business, then the outbreak is more of a test of the dealer's own ability, but also an opportunity for the dealer's digital transformation, and the back of this transformation is the enhancement of the data business capabilities. In the aftermath of the epidemic, OMO (online-offline integration) is under the surface of the dealers from the mode, business processes to tools to embrace the digitalization of the road of progress. In terms of model, dealers focus on offline store business as the core, utilizing user data and operational data to carry out business innovation and business capability enhancement in multiple ways, so as to improve user experience, retain customer conversion and continuous service. In terms of business process, through the front-end, middle-end and back-end process sorting, a complete data channel and closed loop are formed, so as to optimize the operational efficiency and enhance the effect of sales conversion, and ultimately form the cost reduction, efficiency and differentiated development of the whole enterprise. Specifically, the digital automobile dealership includes the front desk of lead acquisition and customer service based on private and public domain traffic such as micro store, small program, official website, third-party platform, etc., the middle desk with CRM and retained customer mining and conversion as the core, as well as the back desk of data analysis, intelligent decision-making, operation analysis and other data analysis. While the front-end leads, marketing data will form data assets for the sales process and the key data of the manufacturer's product iteration, while the digital back office for the aggregation of data from the decision-making analysis, operational port will not only for the front and middle office, but also for the back office such as organizational structure, financial indicators, etc. multi-dimensional feedback, so as to ultimately empower dealers' dynamic strategy.

Part 2: Utilizing Intelligent Digitalization and User Management System to Drive User Growth and Increase Sustainability

Whether it's new car sales or used car sales, online is not a panacea, nor can it replace offline scenarios and offline services. The possibility of direct conversion to profitability online still needs to be explored. Some dealers are also building small programs, micro-stores, and even their own teams to develop APPs and build data centers, with a view to embracing digitization to help businesses transform and improve competitiveness and profitability. However, after all, digitalization is a systematic project that requires a professional team of talents and rich practical experience to really land and produce substantial value. Moreover, the construction of small programs, micro-stores, portals, does not mean that immediately the traffic will come, the need for a strong operational team for the construction of the operational system and the landing operation, in order to achieve results. Even with the traffic, does it mean that the conversion rate increases, short-term online traffic can be converted to offline retention, for most dealers are still facing a big test. At present, the vast majority of dealers only stay online to obtain customers and short-term active during the epidemic, really have high-quality content operation, production and service can be self-propagating dealers are not the majority.

Automotive sales personalization services. Promote User Retention and Conversion to Revenue - High quality wired marketing still has a high conversion rate. For potential leads and potential customers, in time did not arrive at the store, it is also possible to establish a tag library (such as geographic area, car models demand, user profile, etc.) for correlation analysis, through comparison with the users who have been dealt with to look for **** sex, prejudge the possibility of potential users to buy a car, and then targeted precision marketing to increase the chances of conversion of the user. For example, the first and second-tier cities have a greater demand for personalized service for cars, and can analyze the customer sales conversion mode and individual differences through artificial intelligence, breaking through the past marketing means and marketing content, marketing mode, the drawbacks of the one-size-fits-all approach. A large amount of data proved that under this mode of lead and customer turnover conversion have been greatly improved, in the lead conversion time, test drive rate, test drive evaluation and other aspects of the traditional automotive service mode relative to the customer have outstanding performance.

Whether it's new car sales or used car sales, it's important to capitalize on the market sinking opportunity. Affected by the epidemic on the contrary, jitterbugs, fast hands and other online marketing channels almost full coverage of the country's first, second, third, fourth and fifth-tier cities, the rapid realization of the sinking of users in low-tier cities. Taking luxury brands as an example, the current luxury brand dealers and sales operations are concentrated in the first and second tier cities, with fewer outlets store layouts in the third and fourth tier cities. The mismatch between demand and supply determines that the third, fourth and fifth-tier cities are expected to become the new heights of the future incremental market.

Where are the digital transformation opportunities and growth opportunities for China's auto manufacturers and dealers, and how to survive in the red sea, I think you have found some inspiration or answers from this article, both as a manufacturer and a dealer. We are consistent and firm on the future trend of digitalization.

Deeply plowing into the automotive industry Internet in the past few years, Fung Che has served many famous automobile manufacturers, including the world's top 500 companies. We provide them with digital solutions, strategic consulting services, trading and marketing solutions, replacement subsidy system, dealer training system and other comprehensive one-stop service system construction. The core is through the "management + operation + marketing + trading" four-in-one value system, to help manufacturers build a macro-strategic digital solutions, *** build business ecosystem.

"Management+Operation+Marketing+Transaction" means that through the "four-in-one" digital system we have built, we can build a complete lifecycle of customer acquisition, replacement evaluation, inspection and pricing, inventory management, B2B auction, B2C retailing, finance and insurance, extended warranty, intelligent analysis, and so on. After-sales service system, intelligent analysis and other life cycle service system, to the offline dealer stores as a service scenario business, connecting people and cars, to the service system as the core, to improve the overall business capacity and service level.

In the next three years, Toyota will cooperate with 60% of the country's automobile manufacturers*** to build the industry chain ecology. Through digitalization to open up the upstream and downstream of the industry chain, empowering dealers, through scientific and technological means, to help dealers create intelligent service outlets and trading scenes, helping manufacturers and dealers, through digitalization and service innovation and upgrading, to improve customer service levels, enhance brand value retention, improve profitability, and truly rely on digitalization and high standards of service system, to win the future.