I’m happy to report that the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit made its debut without a hitch, and it was a wild success! People from all corners of the auto industry and beyond converged on the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley and were wowed by the impressive speakers and presentations they witnessed over the three-day event.
The summit also attracted the attention of local journalists. WRAL TechWire, the tech-specific news publication for the Triangle’s NBC affiliate, had some reporters on the scene. They too were impressed with the discussions, insight and assembled wisdom the Auto Intel Summit offered.
As of today’s writing, WRAL TechWire has published two stories covering presentations at AIS, zooming in on the event’s focus on artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, fintech solutions and more. Rick Smith wrote about LotLinx co-founder Jason Knight’s session, discussing AI and machine learning’s evolving role in advertising, as well as the cybersec panel led by members of industry partners Carolina Fintech Hub. Mindy Hamlin trained her eye on IBM Global Automotive Center of Competence Digital Strategist Dennis Ephlin’s closing keynote address, “Disruption in the Auto Industry,” which outlined disruptors and the tech driving them: AI, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, blockchain and more.
Did you attend the first-ever Auto Intel Summit? If so, make sure to complete this quick post-event survey to let us know your thoughts. And if you happen to stumble across any more news coverage of the Automotive Intelligence Summit, send us a tip.
While these dog days of summer are still long, we’re just seven short days away from the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit. That means that, if you haven’t registered already, you still have a week to sign up to enjoy $200 off onsite registration rates, and we still have a week to convince you that this will be one of the best investments of your time and money you’ll make this year.
Here’s five reasons you should attend the Automotive Intelligence Summit:
1. Learn cutting-edge strategies
It’s been our mantra since the beginning that for all your questions, we want to provide all the right answers. Our speaker faculty will help you devise actionable solutions to your problems. We’ve assembled a lineup of speakers from Wall Street to Silicon Valley addressing topics from predictive analytics and connected mobility to new regulations and economic forecasts.
2. Teach others your tips and tricks
You too are a captain of industry. We can move forward into the future of auto together, and we should help each other along the way. Take full advantage of the peer-to-peer roundtables on Tuesday and Thursday to learn from top minds in the industry, or share strategies with your peers during any of our numerous networking breaks.
3. Connect and forge new networks
Speaking of moving forward together, AIS provides you and all other attendees the chance to make lasting connections to mutual benefit. Along with the baked-in networking breaks between session slots, we’re also offering you ample time to rub elbows at evening receptions on the first and second nights of the summit, as well as breakfasts and luncheons.
4. Promote the future of automotive
We’re coming together to determine the future of our industries. It’s at AIS that we can compose and champion that collective vision, both during and following the summit. With the assembled brainpower and talent amassed in Raleigh for the week, the possibilities are endless, and for you to miss one would seem to be groundless.
5. Visit the beautiful Research Triangle
We must admit — we’re pleased as punch to host y’all on our home turf. And we urge you to take some time to soak in the local flavor and color of our beautiful region. While at the Marriott Crabtree Valley, you’re but a short drive to the impressive North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, gorgeous campuses at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or Duke University, some baseball at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park and other fun activities. Diet permitting, we also recommend you try some Carolina barbecue while down here — best in the country.
We’re only two weeks away from the opening of the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit, and we’re so excited for you to soak up all the content we’ve assembled for you. Here’s a little taste of two fintech sessions we think you’ll really enjoy.
Jim Landy, the CEO of SpringboardAuto, recognizes that consumers want a better buying experience, have more choices and to complete more of the process online. However, providing the user experience your customers are looking for is not just about technology. The modern consumer experience values real-time responses, full transparency and the ability to self-direct throughout the process. The best digital technology’s success depends on the speed of change inside the organization being faster than the pace of change outside the organization.
Landy’s closing keynote, “Bridging the Technology Gap & Predicting the Pace of Change,” will consider how to make the unstoppable and constant innovations in tech work for you and your customers. Thankfully, better strategies don’t just start with esoteric programs and apps; they begin with behavioral change and having the right people. Landy will also contend that the desired user experience will eventually prevail and opportunity is ripe with a notoriously less-than-satisfying buying experience in a very large market. Demographic change, new ownership models and completing the digital experience will create significant opportunity for start-ups unless incumbents move faster and pragmatically remove entrenched interests that shy away from risk.
Start off the third and final day of the Automotive Intelligence Summit the right way with this panel of master financial minds. Ed Falco, senior director of the Auriemma Consulting Group, leads a discussion with Rod Arends, vice president of service center operations for Southeast Toyota Finance, and Mark Tuggle, head of auto-lending default management and center of operations for BBVA Compass, entitled “Leveraging New Technology and Analytics to Improve Collection Results.” Through their rousing discussion, you’ll learn how companies have managed to improve efficiency and prevent loss using technology available today, saving upwards of billions of dollars in collections. You’ll discover plenty of strategies for how the largest financial institutions in the world leverage technology and analytics to solve real-world collections problems.
Perhaps the paramount goal of the Automotive Intelligence Summit is to make sense of all the questions you have about the current developments in the automotive industry, as well as those to come. While all of our speakers and panels will help answer those questions, your best chance to ask the questions most pertinent to your specific interests will be at the peer-to-peer roundtable sessions on Tuesday and Thursday. These intimate gatherings will seat you with an expert in one of the AIS core topics and allow you to bounce ideas off of them and the rest of the interested parties at the session, formulating strategies for the future of auto.
Here’s a rundown of our P2P sessions, in chronological order:
Boasting over 30 years of legal experience with Hudson Cook, CarMax and private practice, Patty Covington knows her way around some case law, and she’s seen enough change over the past few decades to have a good frame of reference of what to expect from the future. Covington’s expertise has been sought by dealerships, leasing companies, auto-sales financiers, tech providers and more, and she’s well-versed in auto finance, personal property and installment lending, dealer law, creditor-based collections, privacy and, perhaps most importantly to her sessions, data security and management.
Covington’s roundtable, “The Endless Opportunities to Get and Use Data — Are There Legal Implications?” will explore the legal issues businesses should consider when collecting, purchasing, handling, analyzing and using data. She’ll field questions on what laws may apply to the collection, handling, analysis and use of data, and hopefully, you’ll learn tips and tricks from you colleagues on how they’re using data.
Jeremiah Wheeler heads DRN’s fintech business, overseeing the business development, data collection and strategy efforts driving DRN’s license plate recognition data and analytics solutions. His expertise serves him well to lead his peer-to-peer session, “Break the ‘Same Data, Same Mistakes’ Cycle with Location Intelligence,” a master class in demonstrating how to use alternative data to improve your business practices.
As insurance carriers, financial services companies and public safety organizations turn to vehicle-location data and analytics to fight fraud, mitigate risk and fight crime, this data disrupts the old models that rely on customer-reported data and opens new opportunities to drive revenue and results. Furthermore, Wheeler will argue that old data models are failing companies in the long run. Be sure to ask Wheeler how best to implement location data to better your bottom line.
It’s a question that seems simple enough on its face. However, we all know that simple questions can open multiple cans of worms. Luckily, we have people like Kartheek Veeravalli around to help answer these tough questions.
Along with being a member of the 2017 class of Auto Remarketing’s 40 Under 40, Veeravalli currently serves as chief product officer at defi SOLUTIONS. Prior to that, he helped create decision-management platforms for multiple Fortune 500 companies across the world while working at FICO and built a short-term lending portfolio to $100M via the use of customer analytics while portfolio risk manager at Think Finance. So, despite his youth, Veeravalli possesses the bona fides necessary to answer the tough questions.
Veeravalli plans on his peer-to-peer roundtable to be a widely engaging session. From the question posed by the title, “Are You Ready for the New Age of Auto Finance?” Veeravalli hopes, with your participation, to field and answer questions about recent changes and coming innovations in the auto-finance sector, tech solutions best suited to take advantage of the market and what adjustments you and your peers are making or planning to get ready for the future.
This post was originally published by Auto Remarketing. It reappears here with minimal edits.
Automotive strategy consultancy Maryann Keller & Associates will be researching the effectiveness of franchised dealer advertising in a new study announced Thursday.
The project will examine the possible correlation between lower new-car profit margins and the move towards digital advertising.
The firm’s principal, Maryann Keller, will be among the keynote speakers at the Automotive Intelligence Summit next month in Raleigh, N.C.
In her presentation — titled “Used-Vehicle Residual Values Underpin Multiple Industries” — Keller will take a deep dive into the volatile residual values of electric and hybrid vehicles to explain how used-vehicle price swings are causing ripple effects into other industries.
She will also discuss the growing tide of vehicles being bought and sold via alternative remarketing channels.
Keller’s keynote presentation is at 10:30 a.m. ET on July 25. AIS is being held July 24-26 at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley.
She joins fellow keynote speakers Scott Painter of Fair, Lonnie Miller of SAS, Mike Wall of IHS Markit, Dennis Ephlin of IBM and Jim Landy of Springboard Auto.
The full agenda includes many more workshops and presentations geared toward the emerging automotive tech and auto finance spaces.
Traditional advertising overlooked?
Going back to the MK&A project, the firm found in prior research this year that many dealers have cut certain digital ad partners or brought some spending back to traditional advertising — or both.
“While many industry observers predict that digital market spend will continue to increase, MK&A questions if traditional advertising mediums are being overlooked as a result of digital marketing hype,” the company said in a news release.
Franchised dealers are invited to participate in the study, which includes a 10-minute online survey. Participating dealers receive a $25 gift card and an MK&A analysis on the results of the study. MK&A will invite certain respondents to be part of a follow-up phone interview.
Scott Painter, CEO and founder of Fair, has joined the list of presenters at the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit in Raleigh this summer. His session, a fireside chat with Cherokee Media Group President Bill Zadeits titled “Is It the End of Car Ownership as We Know It?”, will discuss how the automotive customer experience is transforming conceptually, from the idea of personal car ownership to car-as-a-service subscriptions.
“As an automotive entrepreneur, AIS is an amazing opportunity to interact with industry participants at all levels about an incredibly critical topic in our industry: What’s coming next?” Painter said. “Whether you’re a dealer, manufacturer or innovator in the space, the auto business is going through a massive transition and attracting interest and investment at unprecedented levels — all of it enabled by technology and generational shifts in consumer behavior.”
Painter, whose business created a flexible car-ownership app, believes consumer attitudes, needs and demands are shifting towards a subscription model like those witnessed in music, film and television.
“It’s no secret that big changes are coming to our industry.”
— Scott Painter, Fair
“For those of us who work in auto retail, we need to be nimble and adapt to how people want to access cars,” Painter said. “If we embrace this change early, we also have a chance to shape our own destiny. Subscriptions can provide customers with the car they want for a set, all-inclusive fee with no long-term commitment while dealers get an effortless, pre-packaged, full-gross sale that has unbelievable potential in creating repeat customers.”
Painter also contends that Fair will facilitate the “full digital transition that other industries went through years ago,” and that dealers and other automotive companies must adopt new models in order to remain in business, but they can still thrive.
Painter enters a speaker faculty representing other major auto, tech and finance companies, such as IBM, Cox Automotive, SAS, IHS Markit, STRATIM, Equifax, NADA, Ernst & Young and FICO.
Scott Painter’s attitude and Fair’s business model embody the very spirit of the Automotive Intelligence Summit, and we’re beyond delighted to have him on board. You can see him speak at AIS at the Marriott Crabtree Valley in Raleigh, N.C. on Tuesday, July 24 at 4:30 p.m.
The Automotive Intelligence Summit focuses on the future of the automotive sphere through eight different lenses we call the AIS Core Topics: Connected Mobility, Fintech Solutions, Transportation Research, Economic Forecasts, Predictive Analytics, Mergers & Acquisitions, Compliance & Regulations and Investment Capital. In today’s blog post, we’re highlighting the topic of Economic Forecasts.
Piggybacking on last week’s post on Predictive Analytics, the world of economic forecasts will be much more viable as financial technology and analytic systems continue to advance by leaps and bounds and become more and more sophisticated. The improving accuracy of economic forecasts will impact confidence in auto finance and other AIS core topics, as well as consumer confidence. Whether it’s inspecting the supply of and demand for electric vehicles in the coming years or the swings of Wall Street and their effects on investment capital, predictions for money markets across the country, continent and world will help determine the future of automotive and auto finance itself.
Here are two sessions that will serve as excellent Economic Forecasts…
Consumer demand and its interaction with supply conditions, economic factors and the resulting sales and price fluctuations is a mind-boggling challenge to keep up with, let alone predict. Thankfully, we have brilliant people like Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of Cox Automotive, to help us in these endeavors. In his presentation, “The Never-Ending Quest for Intelligence in Automotive,” Jonathan will share insights from his 20-plus-year quest to understand the interconnection of the auto industry and will chart where we are in the cycles impacting sales and prices. Smoke will provide a framework for analyzing consumer demand and how credit trends vary and impact personal economics. The big takeaway: Focus on consumers, the source of real demand, and what matters most to them. You can catch him on Tuesday, July 24 at 1:30 p.m. or Thursday, July 26 at 9:15 a.m.
In his keynote address, “Automotive Industry Outlook: Navigating the Waters with an Eye on the Horizon,” IHS Markit Executive Director of Automotive Analysis Mike Wall will provide a high-level economic review and outlook for global sales, along with a deeper-dive discussion of IHS Markit’s light-vehicle US sales outlook and an overview of powertrain, technology and mobility trends. While the circumstances surrounding his forecast between now and late July could change, of course, Wall contends the outlook for the auto industry remains generally positive. Look forward to Mike telling you why. You can’t miss his session on Wednesday, July 25 at 1:30 p.m., after the mid-summit Lunch & Learn.
Do you have any questions about auto’s financial future? Ask them in the comments below! That’s what we’re about with AIS… For all your questions, all the right answers.
Want to learn more about the Automotive Intelligence Summit? Sign up on the home page to receive notifications for AIS updates. Already convinced you want to attend? Then you can register here. The early bird registration period lasts through June 22.
The Automotive Intelligence Summit focuses on the future of the automotive sphere through eight different lenses we call the AIS Core Topics: Connected Mobility, Fintech Solutions, Transportation Research, Economic Forecasts, Predictive Analytics, Mergers & Acquisitions, Compliance & Regulations and Investment Capital. In today’s blog post, we’re highlighting the topic of Predictive Analytics.
Predictive analytics will smooth over so many pain points throughout the automotive industry. Combining data, statistics, model simulations and artificial intelligence to make predictions about the future, predictive analytics can help foresee changes in vehicle supply, demand, financial markets and other seemingly chaotic systems. With predictive analytics, you aren’t just reacting to changes as they occur; the hope is to anticipate developments in finance or the auto industry and equip yourself with strategies to weather those changes or, even better, profit from them.
Here are a few workshops on the AIS agenda this summer that will address Predictive Analytics…
Wouldn’t you like to know which customers you can convert the second they enter your showroom? Artificial intelligence holds a key to that reality. LotLinx President Eric Brown insists machine-learning AI will open a new era of selling cars, and with his session, “How AI Can Identify Imminent Purchase Intent,” he’ll do his best to convince you of that, too. Artificial intelligence optimizes to the dealer’s marketing and promotional environment against their available inventory. Furthermore, by flipping the paradigm on digital marketing strategies, Brown contends you can more easily pinpoint “needles in the haystack” and sell them the car they want and need. This optimization results in significant increased levels of marketing proficiency, which equals less spend for the dealer and higher returns on capital. Furthermore, with AI, you have little to lose and a lot to gain — Brown suggests a hike in sales velocity by as much as 78% and 80% cost reduction when AI correctly identifies buyer intent.
Along similar lines as Brown, Amy Hughes and Matthew Kolodziej — both of Experian’s dealer intelligence team — contend that knowing the online activities of “high-value users” can help you sell more cars with just a bit of additional tweaking. In their joint presentation, “Unlocking the Mystery: How Sales-Based Attribution Transforms a Dealer’s Bottom Line,” Hughes and Kolodziej will divulge the findings of a study observing how analytics can improve dealership performance, as well as point out which marketing activities most effectively lead directly to more sales.
Consumers are not one-dimensional, and neither are their credit profiles. As such, auto applicants should not be viewed only through traditional credit data but also alternative data. In a nutshell, that represents the crux of Equifax Vice President of Auto Data & Analytics Peter Oburu’s argument in his presentation, “How to Use Alternative Data to Impact Profitability.” Oburu will discuss why alternative credit-data sources, such as phone and cable TV payment histories, are gaining greater acceptance among automotive lenders to improve everyday decision-making, increase profitability by maximizing opportunity in the auto lending market and make better risk assessment and improve decision-making and lending.
Some dealers and lenders may ask themselves, “Can vehicle information help assess the creditworthiness of borrowers? What vehicle types are associated with better credit performance? How economically significant is vehicle information?” If you find yourself wondering about similar issues, you can’t miss Moody’s Analytics Lead Auto Economist Michael Vogan present “How Vehicle Information Informs Credit Risk Measures.” In this session, Vogan will describe how vehicle information, including residual price forecasts, lifts the ability of traditional credit scores to classify borrowers from most likely to default to least likely.
Do you have any questions about predictive analytics? Ask them in the comments below! That’s what we’re about with AIS… For all your questions, all the right answers.
Want to learn more about the Automotive Intelligence Summit? Sign up on the home page to receive notifications for AIS updates. Already convinced you want to attend? Then you can register here. The early bird registration period lasts through June 22.
As the world depends evermore heavily upon the Internet and all the devices connected to it, cybersecurity emerges evermore prominently as an imperative in all industries. The automotive and especially financial spheres present no exception. With sophisticated advances in hacking tactics targeting larger marks, auto and financial businesses must have their cybersecurity in check and kept to state-of-the-art standards.
Though it may seem like a more recent development, computers control myriad devices and operations within vehicles and have for decades, from engine timing, emissions systems and cruise control to your seatbelt tensioners and door locks. But connected cars, using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to interface with your vehicle’s electronic control units (ECUs) and cell networks, present further security concerns requiring due diligence to keep connected systems updated and protected. And while reports of hackers driving cars into ditches may lean towards sensationalism, there remain serious potential issues of privacy, fraud, theft and system failure.
The prospects of autonomous vehicles heighten these concerns even further. Tesla’s Autopilot system has resulted in at least two fatalities — one in Hubei, China; the other in Florida — and most recently, Uber’s rollout of self-driving cabs resulted in the widely publicized death of a pedestrian in Arizona. While these tragedies can be partly (if not largely) blamed on operator error, the fatal accidents do beg many questions: Why didn’t the autonomous driving system correct itself against such hazards? How safe, secure and reliable are these systems? How much real-world testing should they undergo, and how do we regulate and safeguard them?
Auto finance presents similar questions regarding cybersecurity — namely, how do we safeguard and regulate these new systems while they continue to improve our fiscal efficiency?
Data breaches have become headline news especially in the past few years, and companies are becoming more vigilant about their own cybersecurity in the wake of such recent events. Measures like the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation — known better by its initials, the GDPR — include extensive protections for personal data, and other companies have already taken initiative prior to the GDPR’s impending enforcement later this month. For example, after Equifax suffered their attacks in 2017, they stated at Used Car Week, “We are a different organization, committed to cybersecurity beyond the walls of Equifax,” and declared a commitment to working with government and regulatory bodies to ensure further safety, as well as a change in paradigm from looking at their data as numbers and instead as human beings.
Another big issue in cybersecurity: blockchain. Blockchain definitely promises accountability and transparency in many facets of finance. For instance, blockchain could track not just ownership, but also warranty information and other important financial info. But it requires cohesive, wholesale involvement among all players in the financial business — not to mention their clientele! And such an interconnected concept also requires trust and security between all partners and parties. However, as blockchain evolves from cryptic concept to buzzword to household name, more and more sectors and businesses within them will likely adopt this revolutionary idea.
These are but a few concerns we all have regarding the continuous evolution of cybersecurity. We will all surely learn more about them as the years roll on, but if you’d like to prime yourself and stay ahead of the game, you should join us at the Raleigh Marriott Crabtree Valley for the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit. We’ll be hosting a dedicated cybersecurity panel, populated by members of the Carolina Fintech Hub, on Wednesday, July 25 at 2:30 p.m. Levvel Chief Technical Officer Chris Hart; Womble Bond Dickinson, LLP Partner and Fintech Co-Lead Alexandra Villarreal O’Rourke and Bank of America Vice President Rick Scot will sit on the panel, with Carolina Fintech Hub Executive Director Tariq Bokhari moderating.
As we head into this exciting summer and towards the inaugural Automotive Intelligence Summit, we’d like to highlight prescient episodes of the Auto Remarketing Podcast. Subscribe to the podcast for more interviews with groundbreaking innovators in the auto industry.
AR Senior Editor Joe Overby spoke with LotLinx General Manager of Product and Technology Lance Schafer about the prospects of using artificial intelligence to make dealerships more efficient. Some strategies divulged include putting AI to use in conquesting opportunities and making decisions about marketing and incentives.
I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.
Like what you hear? Want to learn more? If you haven’t already, register for the Automotive Intelligence Summit, happening July 24–26 at the Marriott Crabtree Hotel in Raleigh, N.C.; LotLinx President Eric Brown will deliver a workshop presentation, “How AI Can Identify Imminent Purchase Intent,” on July 24 and 26. Early bird registration ends June 22.