Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India

Piyush Kumar | Geetika Shah

Sewells Group1: Building Sales Process Excellence at Automotive Dealerships in India

INTRODUCTION

It was June 2013, and Jayesh Jagasia, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Sewells Group, India, was going over the quarterly results for a novel and comprehensive dealer sales and service management system that the company had developed for a client, the Indian arm of a large global car maker. Sewells Group had implemented this system during the period June 2012 to May 2013. As opposed to the normal practice among car makers of taking a compliance-based approach in their retail management initiatives, Sewells Group's system used a capability and culture building approach to address the challenges the client had encountered with its dealerships in the areas of sales performance and customer experience. It had also developed and put in place a measurement system that focused on performance rather than training and skill building. The figures in the report were impressive. The system had been implemented in over 80% of the client’s sales outlets and seemed to be running very well.

But the question playing in Jagasia’s mind was: what next? Was this solution sustainable at the dealerships? Was this model of sales and service performance improvement easily replicable and extendable? Would this philosophy work across the industry? If so, under what circumstances would it work and for what kinds of brands or dealerships? What sort of consulting resources would the company need? Could some parts of the solution be automated, and if so, how would the IT departments of auto manufacturers respond? What were their learnings from their first implementation of this system? Would they be able to overcome some of the challenges that they had faced? Jagasia was looking to answer these and many other unanswered questions.

SEWELLS GROUP

Sewells Group was a global consulting and outsourcing firm specializing in automotive retail. It was a leading provider of retail solutions to auto original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and their dealers. Established in June 1982 as a retail consultancy, the company eventually went on to partner with major manufacturers in an effort to align wholesale operations understanding with retail operations.

1 Sewells Group was acquired by MSX International (MSXI), a leading global business process outsourcing company, in March 2016. Operating as a subsidiary of MSXI, the company was renamed to Sewells MSX International. http://www.sewells-msxi.com/ accessed November 2016

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