Interviews
July 29, 2024
Interview with Andy Shields, INDICATA’s global business unit director
Andy Shields discusses the success of the real time used car pricing platform by sector and how investment in people will power its global expansion to double the size of the business unit over the next three years
Dealers use INDICATA data to avoid the ‘lost billions’
“There are 140,000 dealers in Europe and our data shows that they are losing massive amounts of each year in not pricing their used cars correctly. We call it the ‘lost billions’. That is where INDICATA comes in, our real time used car pricing can be used at a macro level by dealer groups and at a micro level by individual dealers in their local area to ensure they price their used stock against the current market conditions.
Prices can rise or fall on some stock by a few hundred Euros in just a couple of weeks, which our data proactively tracks. The resulting data helps dealers and OEMs stay one step ahead of the game. That is why INDICATA is going from strength to strength within the dealer community as it provides actionable intelligence.
CEOs can gauge very quickly the performance of group stock and adopt a pricing strategy with the used car managers on individual brands and by region. With used car profitability becoming even more important now that agency models are trimming new car making strategic data-led decisions is good for the business and their bottom line
But INDICATA supports dealers beyond selling used cars – it provides an additional resource when taking in part exchanges from customers as INDICATA data provides an additional reference point for what to pay for a used car. And that might mean offering a customer more for the right car rather than less money.
And with prices on a rollercoaster for the past 12 months in the majority of European markets INDICATA’s wholesale pricing data becomes a powerful ally when bidding on used cars. Making sure you get the right stock for the right price at auction provides further peace of mind.
OEMS use INDICATA to measure network performance
More and more OEMs are using INDICATA as a method of measuring and analysing their network’s used car performance either by country or on a pan European basis.
They all understand that a successful used car market for their brand is vital to support their new car registration ambitions. INDICATA gives them all the data they need to measure performance from residual values and volumes to stocking days and profitability.
As well as measuring the performance of their own brand in the used market they can utilise INDICATA to compare it with rival brands and even independent dealers.
Renault and Toyota are just two brands that rely on INDICATA for pan European network performance data while in the UK Nissan, Kia and Skoda all use our data to gauge the ROI of used car sales dealer by dealer.
Leasing and rental companies rely on in-depth data insights
The European leasing and rental industry have used our Market Watch used car insights report to assess and analyse patterns in the used car industry across 13 countries since it was launched in Q1 2020 just as Covid struck.
Now in its 52nd month of publication Market Watch is now seen as the go to place for a helicopter view of used car trends in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the UK.
Our assessment and analysis over the past two years has also provided real life insights into how used BEVs are performing and the key market drivers for prices, demand, sales and stocking days.
INDICATA data is now being used to power our Residual Value Forecasting product in all the key markets and the response has been so positive the plan is that by the end of 2024 all 13 countries in Europe will be offer this to customers. RV Forecasting has two distinct advantages:
1 Its USP is that its pricing is totally transparent and based on real prices and is not AI-based.
2 The INDICATA team have a desire and willingness to engage with customers rather than manage them remotely from head office or a salesperson’s home office.
That’s why we are now recruiting a further 15 INDICATA salespeople to take the product to customers and to help them realise the full power of Big Data when managing their assets.
INDICATA benefits from global expansion programme
Hot on the heels of expansion in Europe the next Autorola subsidiary to go live is Brazil where it will bring a new level of scale and professionalism to used car data. The Brazilian financial services industry which is very sophisticated has already welcomed INDICATA’s launch to help support its compliance and governance.
Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Ireland are set to welcome INDICATA by the end of 2024.”