15 Aug When Is It Time To Revamp Your Workflow?

When is it the right time for your dealership to move to a workflow architecture to manage your recon process?  When the mandate is, “Recon needs to get fixed.”

Here are three principal reasons to support the change.

1. Lack of accountability
2. Cars not getting to the frontline fast enough
3. Other owner/GM’s from 20-Group meetings, NADA or from NCM20 training hopping onboard to a workflow system for their own recon operations

The implementation of an automated workflow management system has been a proven game changer in hundreds of recon centers. With this type of system, you could see first hand your own time-to-market metrics. Simply, an automated workflow management system is a software tool used in business to decide when one step has been successfully completed before moving on to the next. There is complete visibility and accountability in real time from recon start to frontline ready. Workflow is the ideal tool in a recon environment, and a total win-win for techs and management.

Change, however, usually meets with resistance. Prior to workflow, attempts to fix the recon process have been unsuccessful in many dealerships. As a result, a strong reluctance may still exist among some workers to change, even when they know their time-to-market numbers have been unsatisfactory. It comes as a pleasant surprise, when implementing a workflow system, how simple it is to use, and the system will quickly be up and running. With workflow, individuals can follow their own performance and see how it directly impacts the overall efficiency of entire recon process. Both managers and users see the same information.

We know that better spreadsheets, shared Google docs, re-purposed scheduling apps or other static tools are just not up to the task in a recon environment. The individuals who most need to be accountable will not make the effort to record their work accurately. Unless the users have some direct input and regular visibility to what is being reported about their work, there is no trust in the system. Workflow brings trust into recon. It attaches ownership to one’s work and is documented in real time for all to see — there is a sense of pride and complete transparency. Accountability is not in question.

Steps to take when “fixing recon” becomes a mandate include:

• Requesting a live demo of systems with similar volume and complexity

• Talking to dealers who have made the move

• Choosing an existing system to clone or designing your own where you need accountability

• Training on the new system and then launching it

• Requiring your software provider include 30, 60 and 90-day process performance reviews

• Establishing your own baseline “Time to Market” metric after 30 days

• Adjusting the processes as needed to meet your own “Time to Market” objectives

Dennis McGinn is the founder and CEO of Rapid Recon. He can be contacted at 866.268.3582, or by email at dmcginn@autosuccessonline.com.