In a new series of monthly Executive Views, Keyloop’s Jacqui Barker – a one-time work colleague of the Automotive Management team and last year’s winner of the Barbara Cox Woman of the Year trophy for inspiring automotive women – will share her thoughts on the changing dynamics in motor retail, from technology’s influence to the necessary evolution of its workforce.
I’m truly honoured to be asked to contribute a monthly column for AM Online, as I started my career with its publisher, Bauer, when I was just 20. The two decades that followed included working with a raft of automotive magazine brands, events, launches, research and insight, and the early world of automotive websites. I was hugely curious about what the digital space could hold for the industry; that same wonder motivates me today.
In that time, I had three boys in three different schools, so I set up a consultancy to help manage the load and balance. I freelanced my way through AutoTrader, iVendi, and Summit (now Drivvn), working with OEMs to help them first understand online consumer behaviour, then create a media strategy and develop the tools and capabilities to grow in a newly digital world.
Three years ago, I joined the global alliances division at Keyloop to run the OEM team and it immediately brought a fresh appreciation for the new world that technology unlocks. Recently, my work with our strategy team has incorporated brand outreach as our global evangelist at industry events and through social channels.
Technology connects a huge ecosystem – unique to every OEM and market, while the retail sector adds an entirely new layer of complexity and is littered with point solutions. As an industry, we can leverage technology to make our lives so much easier.
It feels like we have been poised on the edge of transformation forever, but at the same time, the inability to change has hampered our progression.
I personally don’t think we need to make seismic shifts. Agile development is the key lesson we can take from technology – and it started in Silicon Valley.
Amazon started selling books from storage facilities; now, it is leading the way in e-commerce, AI, logistics, and robotic distribution. That transformation took a million steps not one leap.
Harnessing AI can accelerate your operations and drive efficiencies in a vast number of ways. Generative AI has been developed to learn and evolve continually to alleviate some of the more laborious tasks on the to-do list; I personally am a fan!
Fortunately for me, my job doesn’t require me to develop products or know how to code, but it does require a curious approach to work with global OEMs, NSCs and retailers to understand what they’re trying to achieve, having the ability to understand and translate what technology is capable of and how to connect the dots. We are able to help our customers ensure data is in the right place, at the right time to make their business more profitable.
Perhaps the biggest lesson for me when I joined the team at AutoTrader came when they closed the print edition. The publishers took a sharp intake of breath. The writing was on the wall: Why trawl through classified listings in teeny font when you can browse in full colour with filters to only show stock you really want to look at? Wow! The birth of consumer-first automotive browsing?
With the addition of AI and the possibility of stocking with intelligence based on aggregated data, you can market what consumers are really looking for.
Tesco were pioneers of this artform, using tools to track what sells and stocking accordingly, and now all supermarkets reward loyalty with a discount at the till, providing you share your precious data.
As humans we have every opportunity to harness technology to improve the way we live and work, we just need to know where to start and then what to do next. The automotive industry is no different.
This column will hopefully give food for thought to and empower you to think differently about technology – how it can unlock opportunity, greatly improve customer experience, enable greater efficiency and ultimately, make it easier for you to run your business.
Innovation largely comes out of what feels broken, ask yourself what would make this process better when you do pretty much anything, especially if the suboptimal process or task feels clunky.
Meeting Automotive Management’s editor Tim Rose to explore column ideas felt like coming back to visit family; the values of the team at AM have remained as strong as ever, and the purpose of trade media has always been to help readers do their jobs. I share that value. Having spent the last 10 years navigating digital, from media marketplaces to early ecommerce, and now effortlessly automating previously arduous tasks, writing for the publisher where I started feels like I’ve come full circle.
My passion for automotive remains as strong as ever. This industry has given me the opportunity to carve a career of continual learning and a community that has become a major part of my life.
Technology is the most exciting place to be right now and the innovation that this industry is generating means every day really is a school day, but don’t worry I’m doing the homework for you!
Next month, I’ll be delving into ‘Tech Speak’ - you don’t need to know how to code to innovate – you just need to understand where to start. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to follow me on Linkedin, where I’ll be sharing updates from our team on the ground at NADA this month and the latest innovations from the Toronto Auto Show in February.
Author: Jacqui Barker, global OEM strategy director, Keyloop