With 20 automotive brands and 70 franchise locations, Hendy Group sought a technology partner to provide the means to operate with flexibility and agility to best meet the demands of the modern car buyer.
After Autofinity CEO Andy Whitehair and Hendy Group’s commercial director and Hendy Foundation trustee Mark Busby met several times at various industry events, it was apparent that their business goals were aligned.
In 2022, Hendy Group looked to create a bespoke website and a customer journey that was consistent across its group and brands but it needed a technology partner with the ability to connect existing systems and suppliers and enhance its data quality.
At the same time, Autofinity had reassessed its own offering and made the decision to move away from developing a full stack solution to providing an integration platform. It had become apparent that automotive retail groups needed flexibility and integration via a central hub freeing them up to choose best in class suppliers based on their own criteria whilst overcoming the integration barrier.
Thus, the partnership between Hendy Group and Autofinity was timely. Hendy Group sought a technologically agile partner and Autofinity wanted to develop its integration and inventory management system in line with retailer requirements.
“We wanted to create a bespoke website and customer journey that would be consistent for all our customers across the group and our brands. We wanted the Hendy point of difference to come across when the customer visited our website which is why we wanted a bespoke website & vehicle management platform.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Inventory
By implementing Autofinity’s ViHUB platform, Hendy Group gained full oversight of its vehicle inventory in a way that wasn’t previously possible since disconnected systems did not allow data to be shared or viewed as a whole.
ViHUB creates a centralised repository of all stock which in turn automatically feeds dealer and OEM websites as well as online marketplaces such as Auto Trader. ViHUB also enhances and enriches vehicle data by pooling information from multiple sources.
With its overview of group stock, ViHUB also empowered quick decision making on stock allocations such as whether a vehicle was to be traded or prepped for the forecourt. With that information readily available in one place, it improved efficiency and vehicle tracking.
“The ViHUB vehicle inventory platform provides us with exactly that and ensures we are in control of the evolution of getting stock from our inventory to our website in a consistent and professional fashion.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Data enhancement
Like most dealer groups, Hendy suffered with data quality issues caused by the operation of multiple systems. These often require double keying and different applications demand different information to implement specific tasks with no ability to see the full picture which can result in inaccurate and conflicting information. By pooling the data, ViHUB highlights discrepancies which are more easily rectified thereby enhancing data quality exponentially.
“There is a lot of complex vehicle data that needs managing and ViHUB ensures the accuracy of the data for each vehicle that we upload online for sale. It gives us peace of mind that the information that accompanies a vehicle for sale on our website is 100% accurate.
“That is vital as typically we process in excess of 18,000 used vehicles per annum which account for 760,000 images. We are very aware that the better quality the imagery the more valuable it is to an online buyer and the more likely they will come to us to buy their next car.
“In two years of working together we have had very few errors in stock descriptions – our biggest challenges can be LCVs where every vehicle is bespoke.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Stock oversight
The provision of a ‘single view of the truth’ revolutionises a dealer group’s agility from speed to market to stock turn which in turn boosts sales and profits because all information is in one place. Meanwhile, a single data pool is essential for Hendy’s senior management team to make intelligent, data led business decisions.
“Focusing on the speed at which it takes for a vehicle to work its way through the refurb process and to putting it up for sale on the website is vital. The quicker this happens the better. ViHUB gives us a full overview of stock inventory, days in stock and cost compared to profitability. It provides this information in real time and importantly is very consistent. ViHUB’s reporting is very thorough.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Integration
In keeping with its philosophy of empowering retailers to select their preferred suppliers without the need to double key and to access information across applications readily, Autofinity set about integrating Hendy Group’s 35 suppliers via ViHUB. It was also essential to incorporate brand nuances to meet manufacturer requirements.
As early adopters, the group’s senior leadership team were open to innovation and trialling new approaches. Processes were tweaked as lessons were learned which has enabled the group to achieve its ambitions to become flexible, nimble and agile in its approach. Connecting multiple systems and creating a single view of the truth of its vehicles through the ViHUB platform has enabled the group to create a more intuitive customer purchase journey.
“It supports our aim of simplifying things for our colleagues and customers and making the experience of sourcing and buying a used vehicle from Hendy as straightforward as possible. We want to cater for both the logical and emotional car purchasers which includes EV which can be confusing.
“We have multiple platforms to deal with that arise from relationships with 20 automotive brands and 70 franchise locations. We can rely on ViHUB giving us a complete overview of our group stock at any one time.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Client relationship
Hendy Group’s ability to provide a flexible retail strategy for staff and customers is dependent on the reliability of its technical partners. Likewise, Autofinity wanted to partner with companies rather than enter into a traditional client relationship which included growing its own company, expanding its portfolio of products and evolving its platform according to client requirements.
Regular meetings take place between Autofinitys team and Hendy Group’s senior marketing team. Autofinity client support team meets with the group’s retail teams to ensure the highest level of service provision is delivered.
For Autofinity, Hendy Group is the gold standard of client relationships in that ideas are shared and the teams work collaboratively to ensure the business grows in line with client ambitions.
“We have had excellent support along the journey form the Autofinity team. They are constantly looking at helping improve our internal processes to ultimately improve our used car experience and performance.
“We have an easy relationship with Autofinity, and they feature very positively when we ask for our regular supplier feedback from the business. SLAs are being exceeded and a process of continual improvement is always being adopted.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group
Future developments
As part of its collaborative relationship with Hendy Group, new initiatives and additional features are continually made to the ViHUB system. When Autofinity launched its new user interface, it did so in partnership with the group’s employees who used the platform on a daily basis to ensure the new dashboard met with end user requirements.
When the group decided to launch an internal auction strategy, its leadership team turned to Autofinity to ensure the technology and integrations were in place to deliver the initiative. About to go live, the internal auctions will enable used vehicles to be more readily identified by the site best placed to retail a particular vehicle and to easily track whereabouts and status of individual vehicles.
Hendy Group is also planning an audit of its systems so it can better understand connectivity between them, the extent of licences in existence and potential duplication of applications which will be undertaken by Autofinity’s consulting arm Transform.
“We know automation brings with it speed and accuracy and the aim is to have as much of our data management automated as possible – that will also help make our colleagues lives easier and will free up their time whilst reducing the repetition of data input.” Mark Busby, commercial director, Hendy Group