The Industry:
The Back Office plays a very important part of an auto dealership. When a customer buys their car, their final experience is in the back office of the car dealers where they finance the purchase and buy addiotnal add on insurance products. The back office industry is called F&I (Finance & Insurance). We will be analyzing the F&I Industry.
What is F&I:
The term F&I stands for Finance & Insurance. The term has its origins in the F&I office at US automobile dealerships that arranges financing for the purchase after the customer has selected the car. Dealerships profited from either adding percentage points to the finance APR from lenders (rate float), or from reselling the loans to be serviced by others once the customer had purchased the car. Once that became standard practice, in a quest for additional profits, dealerships started offering Credit Insurance products from the same office that protected the customer from having to make loan or lease payments if they were to die or become disabled. Thus, the 'Finance & Insurance' (F&I) industry was born.
The F&I office is an indispensable part of the automobile dealerships. It usually brings in a large proportion of the dealerships profits and in several cases nearly all of the dealership profits. Ironically, the interest rate float and credit insurance no longer provide the majority of the revenue earned by the F&I office at automotive dealerships. Since the late 1970s, a majority of F&I revenues have come from products such as VSC, GAP, Prepaid Maintenance, Appearance Protection, etc. Although a vast majority of the F&I products are still sold at automotive dealerships, other sales channels such as credit unions, direct marketing (call centers plus mail solici...
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...harged for i.e. a warranty must come free of charge with the product. For example, the price of a car includes the manufacturer warranty that comes with it. Insurance products are heavily regulated and have dozens of federal and state regulations and much oversight. This is meant to ensure that such companies treat all insurance customers fairly and that they maintain enough reserves to pay for any potential claims. Although there are some insurance products sold at the F&I dealership (such as Mechanical Breakdown Insurance, GAP Insurance), for the most part they are 'contracts' between the customer and the service provider - in most cases, to reimburse the customer should something untoward happen to an asset of some kind that the customer is purchasing. In fact, the technical term most used for such products is 'Contractual Liability Insurance Program (CLIP)'.
Until recently, the Ford Motor Company has been one of the most dynastic of American enterprises, a factor which has both benefited the company and has brought it to the brink of disaster. Today Ford is the second largest manufacturer of automobiles and trucks in the world, and it’s operations are well diversified, both operationally and geographically. The company operates the worlds second largest finance company in the world, and is a major producer of tractors, glass and steel. It is most prominent in the US, but also has plants in Canada, Britain and Germany, and facilities in over 100 countries.
This paper will focus on the future of the U.S. Automobile industry as the United States recovers from the worst recession we have experienced in the past 75 years. I will provide information on the following topics pertaining to the U.S. automobile industry:
Offering consumers access to an extensive inventory online along with warranties, service, financing, appraisals, and add the consumer’s ability to sell the car to the dealership is CarMax’s brand. CarMax needs to continue to leverage their competitive strengths while making sure they offer the best-priced cars to the very competitive used car buying consumer. While it may be attractive to CarMax to enter new car market, they risk losing the ability to conduct their business model as manufacturers have various rules and contract requirements to carry the Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Honda, or Toyota product lines. With this, they risk losing their brand recognition and identity with their consumers. Additionally, costs associated with buying an existing dealership with inventory and various licensing and franchising fees have the potential to drive up costs and therefore threaten their ability to price
Insurance is as ancient as Babylon. The first policy dates back to 2100 B.C.; specifically, it is the Code of Hammurabi. A loan from a trader made certain his valuable cargo traveled safe from the harm of thieves or storms (Marples). The term changed drastically through the ages, and insurance is now a mess of premiums, tiers, and co-payments. It may most commonly be known as a negative number on a check stub that ensures health and safety. There exists not one company that covers everything on just one plan, but a step forward may change that.
Business has been doing good with an emphasis of selling new cars as the principal business of the dealership
The task of this assignment is to complete a competitive analysis of two of the largest competitors in the industry of chosen study. This researcher’s chosen field is the Car Wash industry. Unlike many industries, the Car Wash industry does not have dominant players or franchise names that rule across the country. Unlike other automobile related industries such as oil change (Rapid Oil Change), tires and batteries (Goodyear), and auto parts retailers (NAPA), where these types of name players may have thousands of locations throughout the country, there are no big name players in the Car Wash industry. Although there are companies that own and operate multiple car wash facilities, most of these multi-location owners operate multiple locations throughout a metropolitan or regional area and their overall location totals are nominal. Since there is a lack of dominant competitors to analyze, this researcher will focus on an analysis between the two main categories of car wash ownership: full service vs. unattended operations.
In a capitalistic country with a free market, foreign competition is expected. This is no exception for the automobile industry where America competes with its various rivals. Competition from elsewhere encompasses that from Italy, Germany, and of course, the renowned Japan. The Japanese vehicle industry is especially competitive; according to the Automotive News Data Center, five out of the ten best selling vehicles of the year are Japanese vehicles. This data applies to the U.S. market over the first 9 months of the year. Expectedly, the automobile industry is an important and significant market. Motor vehicles are a major form of transportation as many people in the U.S. own at least one car.
Rhett Dornbach-Bender, Bill Slade, Joe Thorpe. "Strategic Report for Ford Motor Company." Oasis Consulting (2009): 28. online. 20 May 2014. .
The receivables turnover is based on the assumption that all sales are credit sales. The values of receivables turnover for 2004 and 2005 are 10.21 times and 8.83 times, respectively. This means that IQ’s efficiency is considerably declining in terms of cash collection. The decrease in receivables turnover is explained by the higher increase in average net receivables (71%) than the increase in net credit sales (25%).
The automotive industry is one of the most important sectors of the economy for every country in the world. It involves a large number of corporations and institutions engaged in the manufacturing process of motor vehicles including designing, developing, manufacturing, marketing, and selling. It contributes to the global economic growth by generating a significant return and creating a ripple effect on supporting the supply chain as well as providing job opportunities for the skilled workers (ACEA, 2016).
* Ford Parts and Motocraft * Ford and Lincoln Accessories Ford and Lincoln Extended Service Plan (ESP) (FMC Annual Report 2013 p. 149). Planning Every successful company needs a competitive advantage. As part of our companies future, the team has researched various goals and strategies that will move Ford forward and allow them to be competitive in the changing market. “Ford must solve its nagging overseas problems and then "prove" that it can weather the next down-cycle without slashing dividends or product programs” (Smith, 2000, p. 26).... ...
Today, Information systems have come a long way in creating new services and provided solutions and a better chance for certain issues facing automobile industry. Automobile Industries have taken advantage of this to bring into more desirable and excellent operations, improve value to their products and to their customers, as well as enable new business standard, style and image. In this research paper, we will explore the use of Information Systems in vehicles, the arrangement of Information Systems to sustain business operations of manufacturers, and the effect of doing so on automobile industries.
AutoEdge is facing crisis since millions of its automobiles has had to be recalled due to product quality issues. Many things should be considered in order to implement a proactive response to rectify the situation. As the research analysis, I have been tasked will helping to rebuild AutoEdge’s reputation as well as to reduce and control operating costs. When making any decision on implementing change within the organization market analysis must look at the market structure of the organization. Market structure is made up of the relationship that exists between buyers, sellers, competition, product differentiation, and ease of entry into and exit from the market. The article “Review of Market Structure” (n.d.) defines market structure as the “microeconomic characteristics of different markets” and include such elements as competition level, high versus low entry barriers, and scale (Review of Market Structure, n.d.) To make the decision the decision to relocate, AutoEdge must analysis and evaluate of market structure. This report will discuss the four different types of market structures: monopoly, oligopoly, monopolistic competition, and pure competition. Additionally, it will outline the type of market structure AutoEdge fits into, how that market structure impacts the level of competition, elasticity of demand, price, and position in the industry.
There are 5 stages that consisted in the buyer decision process of a traditional Porsche customer such as need recognition, information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision and postpurchase behavior.
... The relationship between manufacturers, dealers, suppliers and customers has dramatically improved. In fact, Ford has been the only one of the three big automobile companies in Detroit not to accept a U.S. government bail-out or file for bankruptcy protection, as its rivals General Motors and Chrysler did last year. According to the Wall Street Journal, Ford sales in April 2010 climbed to 25% as compared to GM’s 7.2%.