Home > Products > Business Development Center 2.1 > Best Practices
There is no magic, "always works" formula when setting up a Business Development Center in your Dealership. Market area needs and manufacturer culture should be carefully examined and considered during the business process assessment phase. The goal is to flawlessly streamline operations and design a center designed to both perform for and assist the dealership departments with the least amount of confusion and confrontation, and to do so cost effectively. Many factors like human resources, tool-sets, budget and management buy-in will strongly influence the success of your Business Development Center. Through years of experience we have come up with a list of do's that will help you set-up a successful BDC.
The BDC Manager is the single most important factor within your BDC Initiative. A good BDC Manager is critical to motivate people, enforce business rules and focus on your most important asset: your customers. Selecting the right person to manage and work in the Business Development Center may be one of the most difficult and most important aspects of your business development center. Like all management positions, extreme caution should be exercised during the selection process.
Do you own your customers? What happens to the customer data when people leave your organization? Customer ownership is a very tricky subject: It's crucial that the dealership protects it's most valuable asset, but you also have to make sure that your sales force has confidence in the system that they will not lose any ups or be cheated out of a sale.
A closely related subject to Customer Ownership is data security. Simply put, the safest place for your customer database is in-house. No amount of guarantees and promises can compare to the security provided by location: on your premises, behind a lock and key.
Implementing a successful BDC Department is not a trivial task. A good project plan needs to cover required functionality of the BDC, personnel planning, technical resources, timeline of the overall implementation and many other small but important details. Most of the work involved in planning and implementing a project has little to do with day-to-day operations of a dealership. Business Development Concepts provides the resources to ensure your Business Development Center produces results.