Becoming a winner

Last week, we had our annual judging session for the AM Awards, one of several similar awards programmes in the UK to recognise achievement in the automotive sector.  Other markets and industries have similar programmes, in some of which I have been involved in the past.  The results of the judges’ deliberations will obviously remain secret until the Awards Dinner on May 12th, but the process did make me think about the value of such programmes, and comparing some of the entries with what I know of best practices in the industry identified through ICDP research.

No competition of any sort is truly democratic in the sense that whilst Lewis Hamilton is clearly an outstanding Formula 1 driver (sorry to my Dutch friends…), there will be some of his peers who he karted with when young who had the same raw talent, but did not have the same parental support or backing along the way to have a chance to fight it out at the highest level of motorsport.  There is always some degree of selection along the way that results in the final starting grid or shortlist.  Most awards programmes are based on the entrant choosing to participate, rather than any nomination process that identifies the cream, but that does not mean that the value of the award is diminished.

There are many reasons to enter for an award including supporting customer promotions, gaining recognition from your peers, aiding in recruitment and recognising the efforts of the internal team responsible.  All of those are valid.  A small player with limited resources may not be on a level playing field if they pitch themselves in a category against much larger, better resourced players.  However, the members of the team will still appreciate the internal recognition of being put forward by their management, enjoy what a former boss of mine used to call the ‘psychic income’ of attending the awards dinner, and they may still be recognised with a place or a commendation.

When larger players win, it may represent less of a surprise, but they may be up against their direct peers so not getting the top prize may indicate that the efforts they felt deserved recognition lacked the ambition, scope or quality of execution of the actual winner.  In any business, there is always the risk of measuring progress against how far they have travelled, rather than by their performance against an ambitious goal.  Larger companies have more resources, so they should be setting more ambitious goals, particularly in the current climate when our business environment is changing so rapidly.  These challenges will not be addressed by large dealer groups focusing on one problem dealership or enhancing one element of their online channel offering, nor by solution providers adding one new feature to their current offering.  We are facing systemic change, and need system-wide solutions.

That means that for manufacturers it is not a case of the digital team coming up with a new retail platform to roll out to their network, or the mobility group developing a new more flexible lease offer.  It is not about dealers putting more focus on improving the conversion of recommended ‘amber’ work in their workshops or introducing new recruitment and development processes to improve the diversity of their workforce.  It is not about software solution providers adding in some new functionality that enables one more step in the digital customer journey.  What I have rarely seen across a whole range of different types of players in automotive distribution is the over-arching masterplan that aims to describe the total system, how the different elements relate to each other and what they will deliver to the various stakeholders including investors, trading partners and customers.

This masterplan is something that start-ups do tend to have.  They often start with a high-level vision, then drill down into increasingly detailed levels of granularity, ending up with the business processes and supporting technology.  Staff are recruited in growing numbers as the workload expands and the new roles are created, so responsibilities gradually narrow and become more specialised, but there is a consistency in the vision and approach that can be carried across the whole business.  Clearly if the vision is flawed – as is the case with some high-profile start-ups recently – then the vision does not survive the engagement with the customer, and must be adapted if the venture is to continue.  However, if the vision is strong, the consistency provides an interlocking structure that can out-perform a competitor that is carrying legacy handicaps.

For an existing player, the challenge is to define that overall vision, share it across the organisation and identify the barriers to implementing the change in a synchronised way across the whole business and where relevant their trading partners.  The roadblocks may take various forms, but these need to be removed to clear the space for the overall change.  If the barriers are ignored or not even identified, this will lead to sub-optimal approaches, where point solutions are pushed at the expense of the overall business performance.  This may result in a class win, but it will not deliver the big prize.