Did your dealership’s cyberattack protection systems save you during the recent CDK Global mishap? Earlier this June, about 15,000 companies paused operations due to the dealership management system experiencing a cyber incident. This highlights the urgent need for robust software integration for car dealerships. Put simply, everything from the floor to the service lane to the upline all took a serious hit.

This news follows a different cyberattack on one of the big automotive companies in the US. Car dealerships are always vulnerable, your business included. The question is, can you deal with the consequences of another massive cyberattack?

GET PROACTIVE, NOT REACTIVE

What the unfortunate events demonstrated was that some companies’ IT schemes are disjointed to a point. Take the DMS cyberattack, for example. Didn’t your customer relationship management (CMS), finance and insurance (F&I), and manufacturer relations management become inefficient during the incident?

The problem is that most companies have mediocre software integration. Different systems (i.e., CMS, F&I, etc.) fail to communicate, creating data silos and redundancy along the way.

This broken software structuring not only endangers your operations once downtime occurs. It can also cause frustration among the employees. How would you expect a green pea to learn when the systems they should master fail when they need it? What can your management teams do if their software fails in the first place?

WHY INTEGRATED SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS ARE KEY FOR CAR DEALERSHIPS

Streamlining your operations, F&I and other areas of the business starts with having a seamless data flow. It removes data redundancies, ensuring accurate information that different teams can access in real time.

The dealership sector is a sales-heavy arm of the industry. As such, it requires delivering exceptional experience. You can retain be-back prospects by implementing software integration for car dealerships to track the customer’s position in the sales flow.

When systems communicate with each other, data is consistent throughout the business landscape. Would you like to save up on costs and time? Software integration for car dealerships is the key.

WHAT SHOULD YOU INTEGRATE FOR EFFECTIVE CAR DEALERSHIP SOFTWARE INTEGRATION?

To mitigate the consequences of a cyberattack, you should seamlessly integrate and manage your systems. The DMS, CRM, F&I, and other management software should ‘talk’ with one another to keep data updated. When the desk or tech pulls information, they can do so whether one system experiences downtime or failure.

Your inventory and sales arms should also become seamlessly integrated to monitor your performance. Similarly, you can review your calendar and schedule despite the DMS pausing since this information is still available.

MSPS—YOUR PARTNER FOR SOFTWARE INTEGRATION FOR CAR DEALERSHIPS

Talking about integrating software might make your head spin, much less managing these systems on your own. Would you like a professional to lend you a helping hand? Luckily, a managed service provider can do that and more for you.

From setting up IT system integration to managing and auditing, an MSP provides the services your business requires. That way, you can focus on operating the company while your IT partner protects you from the aftereffects of cyberattacks.

Don’t let cyber threats get in the way of business growth. Book a call with us today.