Auto Auction Services Corp. (AASC), parent company of AutoIMS, hosted a half-day workshop to gather insight from 13 client organizations representing a cross-section of the remarketing industry’s commercial consignor landscape. Dubbed “Project Client Insight,” the workshop was hosted on August 18 in Chicago just prior to the International Automotive Remarketing Association’s annual summer roundtable.

Using an interactive approach to the workshop, representatives from AASC led participants through several exercises to define the business and technology opportunities and challenges they are facing, and to brainstorm ideas that will help them be successful in the future.  The meeting was preceded by a survey that received a 100-percent response from the invitees.

AASC CEO Mike Broe said, “This meeting was not about AutoIMS. Our goal was to create a forum where the remarketing community could connect, voice their challenges and opportunities, and work together to design solutions for the next generation of the industry.”

While existing issues like Multi-Platform Selling and increased consistency in vehicle grading and condition reporting were raised frequently, metrics and analytics emerged as a key topic of opportunity, generating numerous ideas for the group.  All participants agreed that making better use of available data to measure performance and hold business partners and employees accountable were vital to their continued success.

The results of Project Client Insight include 18 long-term ideas for new technology and services for AASC. With the help of participants’ votes, AASC leaders prioritized these ideas into five short-term projects, including:  

1. A “Set for Sale Calendar” tool. 

2. New sales results dashboard metrics. 

3. Numerous additional pre-calculated “smart fields” in AutoIMS. 

4. An effort to drive standardization in auction expense reporting. 

5. The development of more robust mobile tools for the industry.

AASC Customer Service Director Joe Miller added, “As a result of the PCI meeting, we are confident that these projects will have a meaningful, positive, and lasting impact on the industry and our clients’ bottom lines.” 

“Through their participation, our clients demonstrated incredible teamwork, openness and energy toward designing the future of remarketing. We are immensely grateful for their time and commitment to us – not only during the meeting itself, but also for the follow up work they will do to see these projects through,” added Broe.

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