How GP Strategies Transformed Automotive Dealership Operations Across Asia & The Middle East
Discover how GP Strategies achieved a 15% boost in dealer customer experience and doubled completed corrective actions using SafetyInsights.
- The Client
- GP Strategies
- Solution Provider
- SafetyInsights
- Platform Ecosystem
- Mitti API + SafetyInsights Engine
- Industry
- Automotive Dealership & Retail Operations
- Location
- Asia & The Middle East
- Primary Problem
- Operational Visibility Gap & Subjective Auditing
- Dashboards
- Regional Benchmark Dashboard
- Executive Summary Module
- AI Natural Language Query Engine
The Client
GP Strategies Corporation, part of Learning Technologies Group, is one of the world's leading talent transformation providers. By delivering award-winning learning and development solutions, we help organizations transform through their people and achieve meaningful change. GP Strategies has delivered our innovative consulting, learning services, and talent technology solutions to over 6,000 organizations globally. Learn more at gpstrategies.com.
By integrating SafetyInsights with Mitti, we've completely transformed how dealers and dealer managers look 'under the hood' of their operations, moving from manual reporting to real-time, AI-enhanced action.
Industry Context
Automotive dealership networks provide the initial impression for customers, directly impacting the revenue (sales), profitability and market share of the dealership and hence the automotive company.
Automotive companies work closely with their dealership to improve customer service experience and increase sales. Each dealer has a different range of vehicles, from entry level through to premium, depending on the country, location and customers they are targeting. The goal is to measure a consistent high level of customer experience across all operational facets including sales, after-sales servicing and the broader facility standard.
A dealer standards program is typically developed and implemented by automotive companies aligned to the region, country, location and target customers. The automotive companies will undertake their own dealership assessments or quite often utilize third party assessors such as GP Strategies. In addition, dealerships are required to undertake self-assessments during specific periods as part of their contractual arrangements.
The Challenge
How to manage dealer network performance
As workforce transformation specialists, GP Strategies takes a pain point-first approach when solving the complex problems of its clients. This ensures that corrective actions are well considered and focused on overcoming the actual business challenges that will achieve meaningful change.
To implement the quality standards to drive customer success, the following pain points were identified to be addressed as priority:
Lack of Operational Visibility
Dealers and Dealer Managers didn't have the data to ascertain poor performance areas/areas that need improvement. There was no ability to interrogate the data, identify underlying trends and root causes. For Dealer Managers, this impacted their ability to effectively work with the Dealers around specific training or improvement areas as the information wasn't clear or available. At a Dealer level, they had no ability to look at their performance at each site or work on improving priority areas directly impacting the customer experience.
Lack of Motivation & Accountability
Old processes suffered from a 'visibility gap' due to a lack of measurable, comparative data. As a result, dealer performance was difficult to unpack or compare, and there was no way to identify the low-performing sites that required immediate attention.
This made prioritization increasingly difficult and hindered accountability as all results were based on past subjective performance, instead of being accurately reported against centralized benchmarks. This resulted in a complacent attitude to improving results as there was no accurate, objective way to hold dealers or dealer managers to account.
Accumulating Unaddressed Issues
There was no way to centrally raise actions to address issues and follow progress. As a result, issues could be left to accumulate over different audit periods with no way to really know for some time if they had been closed. For any issues that had been addressed, the impact couldn't be measured.
The Solution Framework
The solution involved integrating Mitti data into the SafetyInsights analytics platform. The resulting dashboards provide a single, intuitive user interface that allows users to quickly see their overall performance, trends, hot spots (e.g. Regions, areas or dealers of concern), and drill down to a granular, actionable level.
Platform Ecosystem
Mitti API + SafetyInsights Engine
Mitti by SafetyCulture
Mitti by SafetyCulture was used to capture all data relevant to dealership retail standards, sales and after sales performance and all dealership assessments. This is further complemented with facility location and type, automotive key performance metrics and training statistics using microlearning as a feature of the technology. Validation of all assessments is required including photos, video, comments and specific responses.
- The data captured: dealership standards and customer experience
- Network planning information also captured in Mitti
SafetyInsights
SafetyInsights is an enterprise-grade analytics solution that is readily scalable, governed and secure. It has a direct integration into the Mitti platform via an API and provides fully customisable dashboards with an intuitive user interface.
It allows users to access and search all their Mitti data, identify improvement opportunities, track actions and outcomes. It has advanced predictive analytics, trend analysis, best practice benchmarking and enables actionable insights.
What scope and deliverables were key to success?
To improve reporting and facilitate greater transparency, accountability and benchmarking, additional features have been built into SafetyInsights, such as:
Custom Multi-Region Filtering
Enabled instantaneous comparison across countries, regional clusters, and vehicle brands. This detail includes viewing trends, comparing scores between different assessment periods, and identifying the specific standard that is causing concern (e.g. Service reminders). The dashboard also includes bespoke filters that are not available directly in Mitti.
Automated PDF Reporting
Generated automated summary reports for company leadership and President and anonymous benchmark PDFs sent directly to dealers to foster healthy competition. PDF summary for the President to show progress and increase confidence in the program.
AI Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Added an interactive AI interface allowing managers to query their data in plain English (e.g., "Which dealers failed service standards two periods in a row?"). This produced AI-driven executive summary, including key areas of improvements and commentary.
Data Anomaly Detection
Cleaned out duplicate and redundant action logs to ensure high data integrity across the network.
Future proofing the solution
Critical to the needs of the client was the ability to future proof the solution. To do this, an off-the-shelf tool would not suit. The level and breadth of experience of the SafetyInsights team means that we can think critically about what a client needs from a solution.
We can customize the experience to their needs (e.g. Bespoke filters) and can evolve the platform to meet their dynamic requirements which can change over time. This transforms the data experience for the client as they know the solution can evolve as they do.
Impact & Key Outcomes
Strategic impact areas
Enhanced Visibility and Oversight
The customer experience with their data has been transformed. From limited visibility or oversight, they now have simple, intuitive view of what's "under the hood". Information is now transparent, measurable, actionable and can be tracked. Dealers and managers can clearly see performance results, interrogate pain points and formulate a plan to address issues to improve.
Operational Efficiency
With real-time data, SafetyInsights facilitates better, faster conversations between managers and dealers. Results are transparent and easy to access, and reports are based on accurate, measurable data (as opposed to manual or potentially outdated reports).
Accountability and Action
The tool provides dealers and managers with the precise, actionable insights they need to do their job. It introduces transparency and accountability for Dealer Managers, giving them the information they need to communicate with Dealers and follow up on outstanding actions. Now that we know what the problems are, action must be taken. For Dealers, the insights tells them what areas to focus on. You can clearly see what components of the customer experience need to be addressed to have a meaningful impact, improve brand perception and realize improved revenue outcomes. It shifts the focus back to sustained profitable growth and not just fast sales.
Enables Improvement and Skills Uplift
With SafetyInsights the client can take their stakeholders on a journey of improvement. The granularity of insights means they can see where Dealers need support and what can be done to help them grow (strengthen skills and track progress to measure impact).
Establish Realistic Improvement Targets
The reporting capabilities facilitated through SafetyInsights has enabled the client to implement a Dealer Variable Margin. They can now set a realistic target score that dealers need to achieve to qualify for this bonus. Due to the lack of transparency and reporting capabilities it wasn't possible to do this before, therefore they were unable to offer a financial incentive for dealers to improve their customer experience.
Key Verified Results
Increased overall dealer customer experience by 15%.
Completed corrective actions doubled from 20% to 40% between the 1st and 2nd audit periods.
Total visibility and tracking of open actions increased by 60% between periods 1 and 3.
Identified and removed ~40% duplicate or redundant actions to ensure absolute data accuracy.
Client Testimonials
“To improve operations across our diverse dealer networks in Asia and the Middle East, our main goal was to address a significant 'visibility gap.' We had data, but the challenge we faced was that it was often subjective and lacked the granular detail needed to drive real accountability. By integrating Mitti with the SafetyInsights platform, we've completely transformed how dealers and dealer managers look 'under the hood' of their operations. This transition from manual reporting to real-time, AI-enhanced insights has allowed us to move beyond simple data collection to a culture of proactive, strategic action.”
“The impact of this joint solution has reshaped our business operations. Since implementing SafetyInsights, we've seen a 15% increase in overall customer experience, a doubling of completed corrective actions and a 60% increase in action tracking visibility. By providing dealers with a clear, actionable roadmap for improvement, we've enabled our network to implement performance-based incentives, such as the Dealer Variable Margin. Not only have we been able to streamline our audits, but we can now roll out clear actions and opportunities for improvement throughout our network to focus on sustained, profitable growth and a superior dealership experience.”
Frequently Asked Questions
How does SafetyInsights integrate with Mitti?
SafetyInsights connects directly to Mitti by SafetyCulture via a secure enterprise API. Raw audit data, checklist inspections, site metadata, and media uploads automatically flow from Mitti into SafetyInsights for real-time aggregation, filtering, and predictive analytics without requiring manual exports.
What is the Dealer Variable Margin (DVM) enabled by this solution?
The Dealer Variable Margin is a performance-based financial incentive program. By providing objective, transparent performance scoring through SafetyInsights, automotive brands can set realistic benchmark targets that dealerships must meet to unlock financial bonuses.
How does the built-in AI natural language processing work?
SafetyInsights includes a natural language query engine that allows authorized users to ask direct questions about their data. Rather than relying solely on static charts, managers can ask conversational questions to uncover hidden trends, regional anomalies, and specific site bottlenecks instantly.
Can this analytics platform scale across other global regions and industries?
Yes. SafetyInsights is an enterprise-grade analytics solution built to scale across multi-region operations, diverse languages, and complex corporate structures. Suited for business to business or business to consumer organisations.
References
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