Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/264625
44 | Boating Industry | March 2014 www.BoatingIndustry.com MARKET FOCUS SECTION { DMS } LightspeedEVO where it will focus the bulk of its development efforts. In the wake of the Target and Neiman Marcus holiday-season data thefts, Smith said businesses must think about regulatory com- pliance and data security matters. He added that advanced DMS helps dealers ensure compliance in every instance, as well as help- ing management enforce a process with staff so owners can rest assured critical operations are taking place. "You look at retailers like our dealerships [and], while the prize may not be as big for a hacker, I don't think anybody can take that for granted, and we strongly encourage our dealers to use the security measures that we have in place within the dealer management system," Smiths said. "It's always out there, and I think any business today's got to be very vigilant." DOMINION BETS BIG ON TOUCH With its high-profile launch of DX1, Domin- ion's first foray into marine DMS, the com- pany showed the assembled marine media and top-level dealers its vision for the future of dealership technology. Based on the still-new Windows 8 user interface, Dominion's DX1 is a bold break from the rest of the category with full-scale touch integration, combining DMS services and marketing software together in one intuitive piece. Damir Tresnjo, vice president of technol- ogy at Dominion, has been with the com- pany for 10 years and has spent the last two years managing the many technological chal- lenges of creating a wide-ranging piece of software that has been designed to transform the industry. "Traditionally you have your DMS soft- ware that runs your back office and then you have your website provider, you have your advertising provider that provides you with various advertising opportunities, you may have a company that manages your social media, all these little software [programs] that as a dealer you have to use," Tresnjo said. "After we acquired ZiiOS, we realized that we had most of these pieces so we figured that, hey, there is an opportunity to bring this all together and that's what DX1 is about — it's about bringing marketing, advertising and op- erational side of the dealership together into one coherent offering." With a staff of 70 working on DX1 day in and day out, Tresnjo said one of the team's primary challenges has been collecting and standardizing data between different entities. He gave the example of a boat color being listed as British Racing Green in marketing, yet just called "green" within manufacturing- or sales-focused specs. "We had to bring these two worlds together and, to be honest, I expected that OEMs will have this data for us and we wouldn't have to do that much work, but they're not there yet so we had to do a lot of data cleanup," he said. Dominion's DX1 team focused on collect- ing massive amounts of data in development in order to allow many tedious functions to fall into the background so dealership staff can be more productive with their time. In explaining further benefits, Tresnjo talks about small functions that dealers constantly have to do between several software and In- ternet processes that require staff and manage- ment to keep track of a sequence of data entry that has to all be remembered to maintain ac- curacy on the website, for example. "All these things add up to quite a bit when you're talking about dealerships and what they have to do," he said. While DX1 is still in beta mode with only a handful of dealerships running the software, Dominion's marine team is taking the slow- and-steady approach to gain feedback and im- prove the software before a large-scale debut. Even with the slow ramp-up, Tresnjo ex- pects his team's product to become the market leader within just a couple of years. "I think that market is wide open," he said. "We're saying, listen, it doesn't have to be $40,000 up front and X-thousand dollars a month like it is with some competitors. This can be a very cost-effective solution and you can start small and slowly use more and more of the system. That's the beauty of the system, if you start small and you upgrade later … there is no moving data around we can just show you a few more features and you can keep going." Shown to the industry for the first time at last year's MDCE, Dominion expects its DX1 software to quickly become the marine market leader. GET MORE OUT OF YOUR DMS 1 Enlist your entire team to collect emails at every opportunity so you can grow your customer and prospect base faster. 2 Create team goals that are consistent with your DMS reporting. 3 Stay current on your software capabilities to better leverage the investment. 4 Invest time and money during your slow season to train your team on new features and products. 5 Prioritize key areas you want to utilize in each department and stay focused. 6 Enable all sales and service staff with mobile devices for faster response and better customer service. Source: IDS P42x44-BI14MAR-MF-DMS.indd 44 2/7/14 10:46 AM