It can be hard to see the forest for the trees. This is especially true when you’re leading a dynamic team with a lot of moving parts and a wide customer base.
Take the Vice President of Sales at a well-known aftermarket parts provider—let’s call him Victor. He oversees his team’s performance, allocates resources to equip his team with, manages their customer service operations, and a lot of other responsibilities that vary from day to day.
Victor needs to keep a close watch on their business’s share of the market so that he can make strategic decisions that will steer his sales team towards success. He also needs to be able to identify more timely opportunities as they arise, so they can capitalize on them.
The problem?
If Victor wanted his team to do a deep dive into their performance in the market, they would have to wait for articles, dealer surveys, trade publications, and contacts in the industry—a lot of piecemeal, anecdotal information. They would gather the data but it didn’t have a clear structure. Because the process of collecting the data was so time-consuming, they would really only do it when they felt like they were underperforming. With other responsibilities pulling on his attention, it was hard for him to find time to get that perspective.
Being proactive, not reactive
With Constellation Data Solutions reporting, he can now keep a birds-eye view of how their sales are performing on a quarter over quarter and year-over-year basis. He can also segment their customer data by region to see what other influences may be having an impact on sales. This gives him the ability to keep a pulse on how their sales are performing at a macro and micro-level, without needing to spend hours compiling data and crunching numbers. And best of all, this information is available immediately following the close of the month making it the most timely data available in the OPE market.
Identifying competitive opportunities
“With the market share reports, I can see how we’re performing against every OEM and aftermarket competitor for parts that we sell.”
The Constellation Data Solutions Market Share reports provide Victor with the insights he needs to identify opportunities to seize more of the market and make strategic inventory buying decisions. Because the data is already categorized they can take real, reliable data and tie it back to their own sales in segments that make sense.
They can see which OEMs are growing and which OEMs are struggling with parts more than others, allowing them to attack the OEMs as a competitor more effectively.
Finding the root cause of performance trends
“It’s no question that the data Constellation Data Solutions has is rock solid. You know it’s true. The foundation is concrete, so the assumptions you make based on that data are going to be closer to correct because you’re taking variables out.”
Everyone has their own perspective of a situation. But when it comes to strategic decision-making for your business, you want to get as close to the truth as possible.
If one of their customer’s sales were down in each quarter, the customer may have a number of theories for why that’s the case – poor weather, the cold keeping people away. But now, with the data readily available, they can look at the wider market to substantiate (or debunk) their theories.
Leverage Constellation Dealer Group’s Market Data reports at your business
Constellation Dealership Software companies, Ideal, c-Systems and Charter, have developed the largest database of dealership transactional sales, inventory position and task completion information in the outdoor power equipment (OPE) market. Drawing from over 1,600 dealers on a nightly basis, this data warehouse is the largest, most accurate source for dealership and market year-over-year trending information in the industry.
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