News Archives

Efficiency: Clearing a Path to Profit

Maximize Your Time, Data, and Staff

PFW Password - Winter 2005 What does “efficiency” mean to you? Does it mean creating systems where previously there were none, or improving your current systems? Does it mean increasing your profitability, through reducing costs and increasing revenues? Or does it simply mean achieving more—or even the same—with less? However you define it, in order to remain competitive and be prepared for market fluctuations, your business must be interested in obtaining it.

Creating an Economy of Effort
Building on the strength of the PFW Dealership Management System, 2002 saw the introduction of PFW IntelliDealer, which extended PFW’s evolutionary approach. IntelliDealer continues to show that, with PFW software, streamlining can be achieved through both typical, everyday usage, and via its included “efficiency tools.”
Consider the following list of PFW software characteristics, where one can see that PFW’s dealership management products have an inherent core benefit—a default even—of facilitating the creation and measurement of efficiency:

• Products that are designed and created in consultation with dealers, so they contain the business-specific functions and features necessary to carry out efficiency-creating processes
• Software that is built to take advantage of the latest technologies, creating a “technological competitive advantage” for owners and users
• Systems that are rich with diagnostic tools that measure efficiency—from a variety of angles
• Applications that are highly customizable, and “fit” your dealership’s preferences and processes

Developing Efficiencies
IntelliDealer’s development environment provides PFW with the ability to develop software in a timely manner. Prompt implementations of relevant, industry-specific enhancements can be carried out, which invariably boosts your effort to both create and measure efficiency. IntelliDealer matches the latest software technologies with modern dealership practices, and possesses a user interface that presents information in a highly usable way—and employs familiar web elements such as hyperlinks, drop-downs, check boxes and buttons. This usability has a positive impact on an employee’s learning curve, which reduces education costs.

Familiar and Flexible
Through IntelliDealer’s established consistencies with respect to navigation, screen layout and operation dynamics, PFW is able to establish a set of standards that helps users attain a sense of familiarity and economy of effort—which is maintained as new developments are introduced. IntelliDealer is customizable; you can use IntelliDealer in the business language you use and with the security you need. This lowers the always costly learning curve (e.g., configure a user’s profile so that only necessary elements are available, and appropriate access levels are given) and ensures that IntelliDealer matches your operational flow.

PFW customer Daniel Laguë of Les Équipements Laguë Ltée., a John Deere dealer in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec, comments: “For us, the greatest improvement in efficiency occurred when we moved all of our salesmen to PFW IntelliDealer Management Central. By using the equipment and customer profiles, and its search criteria flexibility, they’ve become more efficient and are more independent when looking for information in the system. Now they can work from home without having to install a special program on their home PC. It’s also easier to learn for new personnel.”

IntelliDealer users love the fact that they can capitalize on historical data and transform it into powerful information. Ron Barlet of Bejac Corporation, a Link-Belt and Kawasaki dealer in Placentia, California, notes that, “We now have database visibility. If the data is there, we should be able to access it. With PFW we can now get the information out of the box.”

By leveraging the wealth of data you’ve accumulated; by breaking down, classifying and summarizing it in order to turn it into information, you can boost your ability to analyze efficiency. With IntelliDealer’s inherent intuitiveness, drill-down nature and graphing power, economizing your efforts becomes an achievable reality.