An Open Letter to Customers from Brian Krzanich, CDK Global

February 8, 2021

HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The following is an open letter to customers from Brian Krzanich, CDK Global:

February 8, 2021

To Our Customers:

Just over a month ago, the world breathed a collective sigh of relief as we turned the corner into a brand-new year. A fresh start brings a great deal of optimism, yet there are still lingering challenges and new ones that will emerge in 2021. While there is much we wish to forget about 2020, we also learned a great deal about ourselves and how we do business that was incredibly valuable and will forever change us. Yes, we faced unprecedented challenges, and I’m inspired by how we persevered together. At CDK, we pushed ourselves to think differently, respond, adapt quickly, and innovate to create new possibilities for you, our customers, and our industry. We couldn’t have done it without your partnership.

Built to be here no matter the challenge

I recently celebrated my second anniversary as president and CEO, but CDK Global has powered automotive operations and profitability with unmatched scale for decades. With nearly 15,000 retail locations in North America leveraging our DMS solutions, we have a strong foundation on which to build and innovate for the future.

Our knowledge of your business helped us pivot with you and offer solutions that enabled your business to adapt and thrive in this ever-changing environment.

We offered our award-winning online retailing solution, Connected Store, for free through 2021.
We reduced pricing on Document Management and Digital Contracting to help you manage the digital retail environment.
We launched Sign Anywhere for remote signing capabilities that helped the industry complete more than 53,000 deals even when dealership showrooms were closed.
We provided support with Elead BDC to help engage those of you who have had to reduce staff following the impact of COVID-19.

We also strengthened our customer-facing teams and built support processes that are better than ever.

We launched new install processes to ensure customers are ready for Day One and have fewer escalations.
We realigned our customer success team to reduce points of contact.
We increased phone support to improve one-to-one connection and get information to the right places quickly.

Many of you have shared with us that the changes we have made have positively impacted the way we work with you. Your personal stories of how CDK helps you run your businesses more efficiently, drive profitability, and create differentiated experiences that keep customers for life genuinely motivate us.

Building new solutions that will transform the automotive industry

The energy permeating across our industry is invigorating. You can be confident that our momentum will not be stifled. We are committed to introducing even more ways to connect developers, dealers, and OEMs into an ecosystem designed to drive business and make the car ownership experience more personal and efficient.

We are focused on harnessing the power of our data and integration platforms to make our solutions more accessible remotely, easier to navigate, filled with more insights, and help you realize a greater return on the investments you are making with CDK.

Since June, we have published more than 80 innovative APIs to Fortellis, with an average of 5.7 million transactions each month. This quarter, we’ll cross more than 10 million transactions each month. We hope to continue to grow this platform at a rate of 10x per year.
We expanded our relationship with Lyft, adding touchless service and parts delivery to our popular Hailer app on Fortellis, which has been downloaded 2,300 times for more than 275,000 rides.
We introduced Neuron, an intelligent data platform connected to Fortellis and designed to turn billions of pieces of industry information into easy-to-understand, actionable insights based on artificial intelligence (AI) for dealers, OEMs, and developers. We also acquired data curation software company Square Root to complement our efforts in this space.
We are building Plugin Apps through Fortellis to innovate our core products further and provide a seamless way for dealers to integrate third-party programs and data into existing workflows.

This past year, we are thrilled to have seasoned, and accomplished technology leaders from notable companies across the industry join our team to help us shape how we innovate and advance mobility.

I am confident the positive, substantive changes we’ve made at CDK Global during these trying times will help us collectively emerge stronger for the long term.

We are equipped and ready to help you take on any challenge.
We are focused on advancing product functionality, and we’re well on our way to showing you we’re up for the task.
Later this spring, we will announce several more collaborations with technology partners that will drive additional dealer and developer-led innovation.
We invite you to join us at our CDK Next-Gen Connect virtual event, where we will launch and demo innovations to transform our industry further. More information is coming this spring.

We know you have a choice, and we thank you for continuing to put your trust and belief in CDK. We are strong, innovating for you, and building critical connections to shape a promising future. Thank you for standing with us as we continue to stand by you.

Be well,

Brian Krzanich

President and Chief Executive Officer

CDK Global, Inc.