Monte-Carlo, Monaco — One of the repeated topics during last week’s IBIS Global Summit speaker sessions was the industry’s attitudes toward widespread change. A forum on the topic, entitled, “Achieving Collaboration is an ongoing challenge, but what are the opportunities the collision industry has to “Optimise” business results?” was presented on June 16 by Advantage Part Solutions (APS) North American President Paul Gange, APS Non-Executive Director Dave Shepherd, and CEO of Boyd Services Group Tim O’ Day.
Paul Gange began the presentation with a simple question.
“Why do we keep doing the same thing over and over when we all know it costs us money?”
For Gange, the answer lies somewhere in the fraught relationship between repairers, vehicle manufacturers, insurers, and suppliers. He continued with a list of questions, urging those in the audience to realize that the Mount Rushmore of the auto industry, “[asks] the same questions and [has] the same anxiety.”
He suggested there are four questions on the minds of auto industry members:
- Are you experience pressure on profitability?
- Do others understand your needs?
- Are you in control of your future?
- Do you wish change could happen faster?
“We need to look for new ideas and fresh ideas and be brave enough to implement [change],” Gange stated to the crowd.
Shepherd stood up as the next speaker on the panel, where he spoke on the increasing complexities associated with triage, vehicle complexity, shop capability, and vehicle delivery.
Outlining each of these processes, Shepherd emphasized collision repair as more than simply taking your car into the shop, but is a process akin to the complex diagnoses and treatments of health and wellness.
“These incremental changes are no longer enough,” Shepherd states, “[we need] to look at that whole piece and say, ‘As an industry, what do we need to do?”
O’Day then opened a discussion on the different ‘Break Points’ or bottlenecks in the collision repair process, outlining how vehicle arrival, teardown, estimation, and delivery errors affect the process of repair and the efficiency of the repair industry. To serve customers most effectively is to serve them with equal and efficient care, he explained. This could be achieved by technology but is also helped by simple communication between related portions of the industry.
“Technology and better partnership across the different segments of the industry could make a big difference,” says O’Day.
Gange continued the argument to urge transparency on various levels of the industry.
“Suppliers, you need to open up your parts inventory. Technology providers, you’ve got to stop closing your systems. Repairers, you have to be willing to show your capacity and capability.”
“Those that [ultimately] win are those who trade in the currency of transparency,” he concluded.
