According to the management consultancy, the battle for sales will mean that competition will become fierce and put market shares at risk. In response Arthur D Little has identified six strategic and operational levers to help these companies adjust marketing and sales models to meet tomorrow’s customer requirements.

‘Based on the tremendous growth ambitions of all premium carmakers, the main challenge will be to conquer new customer segments while transmitting authentic brand values to existing customers,’ stated Dr Andreas Gissler, director of ADL’s Automotive and Manufacturing Group. ‘Besides the offered products, the main differentiator and prerequisite to success is an advanced sales model.’

According to the management consultancy, the battle for sales will mean that competition will become fierce and put market shares at risk. In response Arthur D Little has identified six strategic and operational levers to help these companies adjust marketing and sales models to meet tomorrow’s customer requirements.

‘Based on the tremendous growth ambitions of all premium carmakers, the main challenge will be to conquer new customer segments while transmitting authentic brand values to existing customers,’ stated Dr Andreas Gissler, director of ADL’s Automotive and Manufacturing Group. ‘Besides the offered products, the main differentiator and prerequisite to success is an advanced sales model.’

In response, the company has identified six key levers of automotive marketing and sales excellence:

1) Customer Experience Management – Customers view sales and service quality to be almost as important as product quality. Customer-focused sales and best-in-class customer experience across all touchpoints is a key success factor and the main differentiating element in the battle for sales

2) Product and Regional Strategies – Regional strategies need to adjust to customer requirements in the corresponding product/service offering portfolio of the OEM, especially while broadening the product portfolio to even smaller car segments

3) Retail Formats and Net Development – there should be interaction and integration of different sales channels to ensure a multichannel approach, which must be seamlessly integrated with both frontend and backend systems to prevent losing customers along the buying process

4) Connected Car –increasing interconnectivity offers the trigger for a new customer-orientated business. Cars will become more intelligent and ultimately be an integral part of the customers’ individual lifestyle

5) Processes and IT Integration – IT infrastructure needs to evolve in line with business requirements and eventually a worldwide standardization of relevant processes is necessary. To achieve the required standardization OEMs should integrate differentiating processes into their backend and offer a common frontend to all retailers

6) Margin Orientation – a systematic margin orientation across all distribution levels is key for profitable sales, which can only be achieved by increasing sales volumes while keeping overall costs as constant as possible.

The full report is available at www.adl.com/Battle_for_Sales