Forrester Research: Forrester Retail Insights Automotive First Look: Research & Event Highlights From Forrester

 02 Apr. 2003
What's New And What's Coming From Our Auto Team
Watch for upcoming research on third-party auto sites, dealer portals, and demand management tools. In the meantime, here's our latest:

"enVision Accelerates Auto's Aftermarket Retail"
"Bush's Hydrogen Vehicle Plan: Too Lightweight"
"2003 Predictions For The US Auto Industry"
"2003 Predictions For The Global Auto Industry"
"Sensing Automotive Demand"


What's It Worth?
"Demand-focused distribution, targeted product offerings, marketing efficiency, and Internet sales represent $3.5 billion of opportunity if we do it right." -- Lloyd Hansen, vice president of revenue management, Ford Motor Company

Building Great Auto Sites
Which sites exemplify the top 10 principals of automotive site design? Building on our foundation of primary research on automotive user behavior, Forrester is planning a hands-on workshop to explore auto site design issues in-depth. If you're interested, contact Amy Dash at adash@forrester.com.

What's In Store For The Auto Industry
What's In Store For The Auto Industry
Search
Search Forrester's Web site.

 

Welcome to Automotive First Look, a newsletter designed to highlight our recent and upcoming automotive research, events, and activities. We'll publish Automotive First Look quarterly in 2003. Over time, I'm hoping this forum takes on the feel of a conversation rather than a monologue, so I'm very interested in your comments, critiques, and questions. Send your thoughts to babashetty@forrester.com.


What does demand-driven change? The big February blizzard shut down airports, but it didn't stop more than 200 attendees from coming to our Automotive Summit to hear about the next big shift in the evolution of the automotive business model -- from supply-driven to demand-driven. What is demand-driven? Simply put, it's a strategy designed to systematically align high-resolution demand signals with operating decisions to maximize profits.

So is demand-driven years off? Hardly. Our OEM speakers offered ample evidence of progress they've already made and talked about new initiatives just around the corner.

  • Lloyd Hansen of Ford Motor Company gave attendees a sneak peak at Ford's Smart Order Process, due to roll out this summer. The vision: Analyze and integrate demand data on vehicle turn rates, dealer gross, and online leads to generate recommended orders to individual dealers.
  • Cherri Musser of General Motors presented a progress report on GM's Order-To-Delivery initiatives, which have slashed average order fulfillment time from 80 days to 40 days.
  • Greg O'Neill, president and COO of Mitsubishi Motor Sales of America chronicled his company's transition from a supply-driven "basket case" to a market-responsive company with fast-moving vehicles and profitable dealers. Next up for Mitsubishi is market-to-delivery -- enhancing dealer-driven order processes with demand analytics based on incentives, competitive actions, and in-depth consumer understanding.

    • To get started, OEMs must improve their abilities to sense auto demand by focusing on every customer demand signal generated by in-market shoppers, including Internet research. But do online activities really predict purchasing behavior? Forrester Analyst Mark Bünger answered this question recently with an analysis of almost 50,000 online configurations and the corresponding leads and sales that resulted. The key finding was high correlation between online research and offline sales.

    Stay tuned throughout the year as Forrester continues to research the case studies, strategic issues, and technology that are supporting auto's shift to a demand-driven model.



    Baba Shetty
    Principal Analyst, Automotive Research

    P.S. Are there other people in your organization who should receive Automotive First Look? They can subscribe via the link to our email subscriptions page below. Or just send an email address in a reply to this message, and I'll add them to the distribution list. Thanks.

    EMAIL: Email this issue to a colleague.

    PRINT: View a printer-friendly version of this issue.

    TECHNICAL SUPPORT Call the Client Resource Center
    1 866/FORRESTER (1 866/367-7378) or +1 617/613-5730

    UNSUBSCRIBE: We hope you like First Look. But if you want to unsubscribe, please go to our email subscriptions page.


    We hope you like Automotive First Look but if not, please unsubscribe. If you would like to subscribe to Automotive First Look, please go to our Emails and Alerts page. If you have colleagues who should receive this newsletter, they also can sign up on this page.

    Entire contents © 1997-2003, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester, Forrester eResearch, Forrester Oval Program, Forrester Wave, WholeView, Technographics, TechStrategy, and TechRankings are trademarks of Forrester Research, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective companies. Forrester clients may make one attributed copy or slide of each figure contained herein. Additional reproduction is strictly prohibited. For additional reproduction rights and usage information, go to www.forrester.com. Information is based on best available resources. Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change.