It was a great friend but also a surprise when our MD Sebastian Fuchs asked me at the end of 2021 whether I could imagine accompanying the sales of our white-lable remarketing solution RMS Automotive in continental Europe as an additional task in addition to my work in business development at Manheim Express. So far, my area of expertise has been in the area of car dealership groups and related services and products. In addition, our founder Rick Cebulla had just sold the company pkwNOW, from which I joined Cox Automotive to them and my focus was on coordinating the merger of both companies.
Of course, I have also accompanied international projects in my career and had points of contact with colleagues and service providers in other countries – but active sales at international OEMs and participation in international events in other countries was absolutely new territory for me. But I was very happy about the task and the trust associated with it and of course accepted without hesitation – what an opportunity!
I spent the following weeks familiarizing myself with the product, the teams, and the existing partners in order to be optimally prepared for this task. And the question quickly arose for me: “How can different brands with different target groups be connected more efficiently?” After all, our German remarketing product Manheim Express is based on RMS technology and this fact alone brings many synergies. And so the teams and our partners quickly showed an interest in how we can combine different services via different products into one added value!
In the meantime, we have set the technological course to network both products more closely with each other, even if they have a differentiated target group approach in theory. This means, for instance, that our manufacturers can decide to customers whether to market their vehicles to their own dealer network via their own branded platform, or to market them to our entire European dealer network via the direct interface. This creates added value especially if, for example, the customer has a larger quantity of homogeneous stock, which cannot be adequately marketed in their own network. As a result, we have managed to create an additional sales channel for our customers without increasing the effort involved in vehicle management.
But also the buyers at Manheim Express benefit! This give them access to stock that are usually closed to the independent used car dealer and thus creates a broader and more attractive offer for the dealer.
But this is only a small example. The used car market is changing. Topics such as agency models, electromobility and availability of goods are currently occupying the market very much. We constantly monitor these developments and further develop our service portfolio precisely according to these requirements.
For example, we recently entered into a partnership with CarSale24 to support manufacturers in their future orientation, especially in the area of digital trade-in. The digital trade-in option completes the customer journey when buying a vehicle online on the website of vehicle manufacturers or their dealer websites. In order to meet the need for a trade-in function for online sales, we now offer a solution together. This not only enables a valuation for used cars, it also takes over the actual processing and thus facilitates the transition to the agency model for vehicle manufacturers.
And the next project is already in the starting blocks and I am sure that this will provide further benefits for our customers. So be curious – here I keep you up to date, of course.
Maximilian Lenz
Director Business Development
Manheim Express & RMS Automotive
