How to steer away from the global chip shortage

What are the modern data challenges for automotive companies?

The fast pace of change in the automotive industry makes it hard to steer your car dealership or product development in the right direction. With one eye on the road to success and the other in the rear window watching for competition, automotive companies face multiple challenges.

1. Driving blindfolded

Automotive companies have data dispersed across multiple systems: local point-of-sales, e-commerce transactions, sales reports, digital ads, and more. Without centralized data connecting all the different touchpoints, it is hard to see the road to success.

2. Supply chain trends are hard to predict

Aligning inventory orders between supply (manufacturers, resellers), demand (customers), and prices that jumped over 40% is a juggling act hard to maintain. Let alone spot useful trends. 

3. Shifts in demand and taste

The modern generations and legislature is calling for different cars than in the past. Customer satisfaction is not just about speed, luxury, and comfort. It is also about the impact it has on the environment. Understanding the shifting customer sentiment helps car manufacturers drive better product development (emissions, fuel consumption, …). 

On the other hand, with no preferred cars on the market, the consumers are shifting to models they did not consider before. Car dealerships need to figure out which models to advertise to consumers to increase sales. Should you target first-time drivers with Ford F-Series or Toyota Highlander? Are the older generations more likely to buy with an extended warranty if their first model choice is not available?

4. Shopping has moved online

The modern customer purchased 30% of cars online (vs 2% pre-pandemic). Digitalizing all inventory records and offering a superb online shopping experience is stalled with bad data and sluggish technology.

And suddenly both manufacturers and dealerships need to communicate on platforms they have not tackled as extensively beforehand. The modern consumer researches cars online (forums, price-comparison platforms, social media, …). And the automotive industry needs to follow these new frontiers if it wants to stay ahead of the competition.  

5. Faster purchases

The time customers spend researching and buying cars is shortening every year since 2019. Successful automotive companies need to catch an already narrow and closing window of opportunity to make the sale while it's hot.

Consumers are hungry for near real-time data sets (inventory, prices, “coming on XX-YY date”, …) that can help drive their purchase decision-making. 

6. Fierce competition 

Top car dealerships and car manufacturers have witnessed record profits in the post-pandemic world. Money makes it easier to dominate the market. With a cash surplus, companies that are ahead can invest in predictive analytics, stronger business intelligence and analytic tools, process optimization and automation, and other levers that further increase their competitive advantage. 

To keep ahead of the competition, manufacturers and dealerships need to respond fast on the online and offline fronts before the gap closes.

Building on your existing automotive data and adding advanced analytics on top of it can help you tackle these challenges. Let’s look at how this looks in practice.

Success Story: Olfin Car increased its sales by 760% with Keboola and Marketing BI

Olfin Car is a leading seller of new and used cars in Central Europe with additional services in the field of financing, authorized car service, and insurance. With the help of Keboola and Marketing BI, Olfin Car was able to turn the tides of the current car crisis into an advantage. This is how they did it:

• End-to-end data integration. Olfin Car centralized data from internal sources (CRM, orders, PPC, historical data …), external systems (manufacturer’s reports), and public data (car registrations) to build the data foundations for every other operation.
• Successful BI implementation. With data centralized and modeled with Keboola, Olfin Car was able to increase bidding precision and market pricing accuracy, maximize lead yield, target B2B businesses, and optimize online sales. 
• Competition monitoring. To stay ahead of the competition, you have to keep an eye on them. They automated competition data collections and data analysis, to understand the prices of specific cars, brands, and seasonal offers.
• ​​Effective advertising. By collecting customer data from multiple sources, Olfin Car was able to build more personalized, segmented, and effectively targeted ads that converted better. Getting better results for less marketing spend.
• Improved online sales. With automatic integrations of external data sources (manufacturer’s reports) and competition analysis, Olfin Car increased the new car offer publication speed by 6x, reduced the manual error rate, and improved revenue with dynamic pricing.
• Trends and behavior predictions. Building on top of the collected data and with data science tools provided by Keboola, Olfin Car was able to predict customer behavior and demand trends to better adjust their inventory and recommendations.

Read the full Olfin Car’s success story

Keboola helps automotive companies grow with data and automation

Keboola is a Data Stack as a Service platform that takes care of all of your automotive data demands. With its set of features, Keboola helps automate and streamline all data operations that drive business growth.

1. Automate All Data Integrations. With over 250+ out-of-the-box components, Keboola can automate your data collection from internal, external, and public sources. Automate the data collection end-to-end with a couple of clicks and without having to rely on programmers for assistance.
2. Understand Your Customers. Integrate your CRM, ERP, and communication software with Keboola. Segment customers and unify your customer knowledge to improve and personalize marketing communications.
3. Build Advanced Predictive Models. Let your data scientists and analysts work with tools they know best (Python, R, SQL, …). Build advanced machine learning models in Keboola that forecast trends and help you control the supply and demand.
4. Improve online sales. Integrate your centralized data back into your website and CRMs to build products that convert website purchases and empower your salespeople to sell more.
5. See the big picture. Keboola integrates with multiple BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker, ThoughtSpot, even Excel) to empower you to make better decisions with data. Build visualizations and dashboards, and automate reporting with a couple of clicks.
6. Seamlessly scale for fast results. Keboola’s architecture scales seamlessly as you grow. The data platform keeps up with your data needs as they grow alongside your business.

… and many more. Keboola covers all the use cases of data operations, from data governance to data democratization, and every engineering nook and analytic insight in between.

Ready to get started?

‍Get in touch so we can discuss how Keboola can help you automate and streamline the data processes in your automotive company.