Garry House's Blog – July 2012 Archive (6)

From the NCM Institute Blog: When Should You Compare Your KPIs to Best Practice Guidelines?

Last week I attended NCM’s semi-annual meeting of all its divisional directors, 20 Group moderators, Retail Operations consultants, and NCM Institute faculty members, who, along with our CEO set aside two and a half days to dialogue about what’s happening around the industry and within the company, and how best to address the needs of our clients.  As usual, it was a great encounter, with far too much agenda content and discussion for the overall time allotted.

One of the topics that…

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Added by Garry House on July 31, 2012 at 1:23pm — 5 Comments

From the NCM Institute Blog: Are You Ready for a Disciplined Asset Management Process?

Disciplined Asset Management Several months ago, a long term client-dealer admitted to me that he was finally ready to drink the water from the horse trough that I’d been continually leading him to for the last 15 years. This dealer has always had a lot of financial resources, both business and personal. Because of these extensive resources, he never felt the need to become properly trained to truly understand his balance sheet or its importance. His was one of the balance sheets that I…
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Added by Garry House on July 24, 2012 at 3:08pm — No Comments

The Importance of Sub-Accounting for Auto Dealerships from NCM

At the conclusion of the NCMi webinar on “Finding the Missing Pieces to Improve Service and Parts Gross Profit,” one of the attendees questioned our recommendation as to the necessity for sub-accounting for automotive dealerships. Robin Cunningham, the NCM Institute faculty member who presented the webinar, suggested that our next Up To Speedarticle attempt to clarify this recommendation. So, here we go!

A meaningful sub-accounting process is a primary ingredient of…

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Added by Garry House on July 18, 2012 at 10:00am — No Comments

Are Your Automotive Dealership's Employees Really Engaged?

I recently had the privilege of teaching our first NCMi class that is totally focused on leadership in automotive dealerships. We began this 1½-day class talking about “employee engagement,” and the general managers attending this session began positively nodding their heads, when I started this discussion with, “Surveys show that…

                1. Less than one in four American workers say they work at their full potential.

                2. One-half say…

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Added by Garry House on July 12, 2012 at 12:30pm — 9 Comments

Managing ELR and COS to Improve GPM on Customer-paid R.O. Sales

Wow, that’s a lot of acronyms, but you know what they all mean, right? Following are four Managing ELR and COS to Improve GPM recommendations from John Gilbert, the Fixed Operations specialist with NCM’s Retail Operations division. To increase your effective labor rate (ELR), reduce your cost of sale (COS), and improve your gross profit margin (GPM) on customer-paid repair order (R.O.) sales:

  1. Check…

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Added by Garry House on July 10, 2012 at 10:00am — 1 Comment

Measuring and Managing Your Automotive Dealership's OTDBs - Part 3

I am again continuing the mini case study focused on the objectives established, and challenges faced, in building processes to measure and manage OTDBs in the operating departments of an NCM client dealership group. Today, my focus is on one of the greatest vehicle sales opportunities that most dealers enjoy, but fail to capitalize on.

At one point during this engagement, I had asked the dealer principal if he was satisfied with the strategies being employed to develop vehicle sales…

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Added by Garry House on July 3, 2012 at 12:40pm — No Comments

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