CHICAGO – Emercent Solutions, LLC, a provider of strategy and technology services to the automotive finance industry, will be kicking off an industry-wide performance study with industry leaders at the International Automotive Remarketer's Alliance's (IARA) roundtable conference in Atlanta July 27-29. An educational session on benchmarking and performance studies, conducted by Emercent, will set the foundation.

"The process of defining baseline performance metrics can truly capture key indicators," said Clay Noble, president and chief executive officer of Emercent. "It is comparable to an industry report card. Measuring what matters and understanding how and why processes impact these measures is essential to improvement throughout the automotive remarketing industry," Noble added.

Emercent, partnering with the IARA Standards Committee, will invite attendees and members of the IARA to participate in the study. The ongoing study will focus upon collecting performance metrics that allow remarketers to compare their organizations. Metrics and key findings will be published and provided to IARA members. Remarketers will be able to identify how their performance compares to those surveyed and a best in class will be indicated. All participants and data collected as part of the study will be blinded and remain confidential.

Emercent has been working with the IARA to define industry standards for several years and most recently released findings from its 2005 Upstream Remarketing Study at the Conference of Automotive Remarketing (CAR) conference in Las Vegas this past February. The study was a follow-up to the 2004 Upstream Remarketing Survey designed to collect performance data that could provide further insight into the ever-changing automotive remarketing industry. Study topics were designed to capture the changes in channel distribution, vehicle pricing, remarketing strategies, and challenges.

"Identifying performance metrics is a very valuable step in the evolution of the remarketing industry," said Julie Andersen, vice president of strategy and delivery. "This data will provide key insights and help organizations begin to identify best practices while comparing their efforts to the rest of the marketplace."