DETROIT – Ford’s growing reputation as a technology-driven brand is helping the automaker wring more money out of every car it sells, the automaker’s vice president of product development, Derrick Kuzak, said today.

During a speech to an auto electronics show here, Kuzak said Ford’s average revenue per vehicle jumped 14 percent from 2008 to 2009, to $26,100, Automotive News reported. He attributed roughly one-third of the increase to new technologies such as the Sync in-car communication system, which gives drivers hands-free ability to operate the media system and mobile devices.

“Technology has been fundamental to our improved brand and business,” Kuzak said.

Other reasons for the increase in revenue per vehicle, he said, are improved pricing and more customers opting for pricier trim levels.

Kuzak said one-third of people who bought a Ford, Lincoln or Mercury said the Sync system helped sway their decision. He said Ford will continue to use technology as a differentiator – including its new MyTouch system, which runs on the next generation of the Sync platform.

MyTouch, now offered on the Ford Edge and Lincoln MKX crossovers, provides navigation, entertainment, Bluetooth and climate controls all connected through a touch screen.

Kuzak said Ford plans to offer MyTouch on 80 percent of its vehicles within five years, including the 2012 Focus.

LAKE SUCCESS, N.Y. – DealerTrack, Inc.’s Mobile AAX solution is now available for use on smartphones using the Android 2.0 operating system. Dealers now have additional choices as they increasingly harness the power of mobile technologies to achieve much faster and more accurate vehicle appraisals.

The DealerTrack Mobile AAX solution is powered and delivered by Laser Appraiser, LLC, a leading wireless automotive valuation system. In early 2010, DealerTrack began offering the Mobile AAX iPhone application and the Opticon Windows Handheld as a standalone subscription or as an integrated solution with DealerTrack AAX.

With the addition of the Android application, dealers nationwide can now extend the core functionality of the DealerTrack AAX used-vehicle inventory management solution to a dedicated handheld device, the iPhone, or Android-powered devices such as the DROID by Motorola and the DROID Incredible by HTC through multiple wireless carriers.

“As dealers increasingly strive to increase their efficiency, DealerTrack continues to innovate and deliver cutting-edge technologies,” said Bridget Townsend, general manager of DealerTrack AAX. “Dealers can now run DealerTrack Mobile AAX on Android smartphones – one of the best-selling smartphone operating systems in the U.S. – and start realizing a range of benefits including easier and faster access to used-car valuations, wholesale auction Manheim Market Reports (MMR) as well as access to vehicle history and appraisal information right on the dealership lot or in the lanes at wholesale auctions.”

The iPad, Apple’s hot new tablet computer, has been on the market only since April. But already it has become a tool for dealers, automakers and at least one finance company, Automotive News reported.

Ohio Mercedes dealer Bernie Moreno was one of the iPad’s early adopters.

The day the iPad reached stores, he had his daughter wait in line so he could be among the first buyers.

Moreno, president of Mercedes-Benz of North Olmsted, near Cleveland, started using the iPad in his dealership right away.

“The idea is: How can you use this to your advantage and improve your experience and separate your dealership from everybody else?” he said.

The device is thin, wireless and graphics-rich. Its display is large enough that sharing information on the screen is easier than with a smart phone. It costs $499 to $829.

Dealership employees can carry the device with them as they work with customers, instead of staying behind a desk.

For Moreno, the hand-held device has proved to be handy for checking in vehicles as they come off lease. The entire transaction can be handled right at the car, with the customer participating in the walk-around inspection.

Moreno is also one of 40 Mercedes dealers helping Mercedes-Benz Financial test an iPad app that launched last month. The app is a portable version of MB Advantage, an online system that dealers use for finance and insurance transactions, such as credit applications and vehicle-specific marketing programs.

Moreno was already using the iPad when he learned Mercedes-Benz Financial was working on the app.

The iPad app follows on the finance company’s smart-phone app, which lets customers pay their bills using a mobile device.

“It’s an opportunity for the dealer to integrate the sales and financing processes,” said Andreas Hinrichs, vice president of marketing for Mercedes-Benz Financial. That eliminates the need to take customers away from the car and into a separate office to handle F&I matters, he said.

But the iPad also has value as a symbol, Moreno said. It shows customers that the dealership is not just high-end, it’s cutting-edge.

“It sounds kind of corny, but it’s pretty cool,” Moreno said. “They’re blown away by the iPad in the first place.”

In Europe, Volkswagen AG has launched a digital customer magazine, called DAS, especially for the iPad. DAS is short for Digital Automotive Space.

At Hyundai, buyers of the Equus luxury sedan will get an iPad, rather than a traditional owner’s manual, when the vehicle debuts this fall.

Hyundai Motor America CEO John Krafcik told reporters at the New York auto show: “Who reads a 300-page manual anyway? Instead, they’ll have a gorgeous color touch screen, loaded with the manual electronically, as well as photos of the whole Hyundai lineup.”

As of early June, Apple had sold more than 2 million iPads worldwide. Moreno said that even when the novelty wears off, the device will remain useful.

“You find more and more ways to use it,” he said, and “you wonder how you ever did without it.”

In an environment where compliance and sales put an equal amount of pressure on the dealer, a dealer’s technology partner may be able to simplify the process and achieve dealer goals.

In this down market, with tight credit criteria and lenders being hesitant with advances, product penetrations have taken a hit. Dealers are looking for ways to offset those losses, and perhaps they should be looking to their technology partners for help. Aiding with compliance, sales and paperwork, technology providers may be the key to helping dealers maximize each opportunity and protect the dealership at the same time.

Jim Maxim, president of MaximTrak, says his company wants to make the transaction in F&I a seamless process for rating, disclosing, printing, and remitting. “Imagine having the ability to integrate with DMS (Dealer Management System) to generate a custom F&I menu, run the customer’s credit, generate an OFAC check and Red Flags check, verify the customer’s identification and send the deal to a lender credit portal, all in 30 seconds.  This technology exists today and has an immediate impact: more time to build value and sell, less time entering data in five or six different programs.”

Jeoff Dafforn, chief technology officer for VisionMenu, adds, “We’ve found that independent agents or account reps are in the best position to ensure that a process is followed by the dealers personnel. When they buy-in to the electronic process, as consultants for the dealer, they are the check and balance the dealer needs. This also adds value to their proposition to the dealer.”

Paperless F&I: e-Contracting

A paperless vehicle transaction is where our business is headed, but we’re not there yet.  Some dealers are still printing finance contracts, electronically printing the service contract, then printing DMV forms and a tire and wheel contract. The process has not become completely digitized because the different parties—lenders, product providers and state and local governments—have not agreed on a standard electronic protocol.

The innovators in a paperless F&I office are the lenders and menu companies, and we’re starting to see some product providers move towards e-contracting.  Lagging are the state and local authorities; one reason is that each state has its own rules. It is unlikely that there is a “one-size-fits-all” electronic DMV form that all 50 states will adopt, but the industry can remain hopeful.

Many companies, however, are working toward making the process completely electronic on their end and the menu is a good place to start.  Eventually, the process is bound to become completely digitized. For example, people are gearing up for touch screens with products like iPhones. In the future, the F&I process will become more interactive. Although F&I managers will never go away, they need to embrace consumers and create a more dynamic, open and credible environment.

VisionMenu’s Dafforn says, “Electronic contracting only gets better when the DMS providers advance this cause with the help of more uniformity with vendors’ web services.”

While digitizing the workflow saves time, it can also ensure compliance. A properly designed menu with full disclosure, signed by the customer, is a crucial safeguard in protecting the dealership.  And because different states have different standards, the menu should provide the ability to customize disclosure statements to fit specific requirements.

“A dealer wouldn’t let the F&I department hand write a retail installment contract, so why would they ever let it hand write a menu that some think becomes a defacto part of the installment agreement?,” Dafforn says.

Built-in accountability or tracking functionality is another feature to look for when considering any F&I compliance technology. A “dashboard” can help a dealer identify strengths and weaknesses in business, keep track of monthly and annual profit levels and highlight behaviors that could negatively affect the dealer.

“There’s no hiding from the numbers,” Maxim explains. “Business intelligence with real facts and figures drives better business.”

One thing these figures might show is that VSCs are still the flagship F&I product for most dealerships. VSCs and any dealer-reinsured maintenance programs get focus because they bring people back to the selling dealer and capture the service aspect of the business.

Dealers are trying to capture business in creative ways, like offering perks with the purchase of a vehicle, and if these perks can bring the customer back to the dealership for service, there is a 75 percent chance that customer will buy another car at that dealership.

One way dealers can increase the sale of VSCs with the help of a technology partner is through menu selling. It is structured, yet non-confrontational to customers. In addition to providing a low-pressure environment and giving the customer choices, integration with VSC lenders allows the client to rate with the lenders in real time, showing the customer all options that are available with the vehicle being purchased. This provides a credibility factor in the F&I process

Technology can bring focus and give people the tools to analyze business in an intelligent way.

One of the strategies Maxim suggests for F&I managers to analyze business intelligently on the finance side of things is to consolidate bank partnerships. If lenders get a lot of business from a dealer, they will occasionally look at less favorable deals and advance automatically.

“A lot of captive finance arms have been helping the loyal dealerships for years,” Maxim says.

“Custom reporting can help dealers evaluate who is getting their paper, as well as how much they are making when they finance through each finance source,” VisionMenu’s Dafforn says. “It gives them the ability to leverage their position with the lender by being informed about who they are making money for.”

And even though F&I managers should be looking at creative ways to get deals financed, lenders are beginning to loosen up a bit.

“There are signs of life out there,” Maxim says. “A lot of things are starting to pop back. The standards in automotive financing are definitely loosening from where they were in 2008 and 2009.”

A paperless vehicle transaction is where our business is headed, but we’re not there yet. Some dealers are still printing finance contracts, electronically printing the service contract, then printing DMV forms and a tire and wheel contract. The process has not become completely digitized because the different parties—lenders, product providers and state and local governments—have not agreed on a standard electronic protocol.

The innovators in a paperless F&I office are the lenders and menu companies, and we’re starting to see some product providers move towards e-contracting. Lagging are the state and local authorities; one reason is that each state has its own rules. It is unlikely that there is a “one-size-fits-all” electronic DMV form that all 50 states will adopt, but the industry can remain hopeful.

Many companies, however, are working toward making the process completely electronic on their end and the menu is a good place to start. Eventually, the process is bound to become completely digitized. For example, people are gearing up for touch screens with products like iPhones. In the future, the F&I process will become more interactive. Although F&I managers will never go away, they need to embrace consumers and create a more dynamic, open and credible environment.

VisionMenu’s Dafforn says, “Electronic contracting only gets better when the DMS providers advance this cause with the help of more uniformity with vendors’ web services.”

Compliance and Accountability

While digitizing the workflow saves time, it can also ensure compliance. A properly designed menu with full disclosure, signed by the customer, is a crucial safeguard in protecting the dealership. And because different states have different standards, the menu should provide the ability to customize disclosure statements to fit specific requirements.

A dealer wouldn’t let the F&I department hand write a retail installment contract, so why would they ever let it hand write a menu that some think becomes a defacto part of the installment agreement?,” Dafforn says.

Built-in accountability or tracking functionality is another feature to look for when considering any F&I compliance technology. A “dashboard” can help a dealer identify strengths and weaknesses in business, keep track of monthly and annual profit levels and highlight behaviors that could negatively affect the dealer.

“There’s no hiding from the numbers,” Maxim explains. “Business intelligence with real facts and figures drives better business.”

One thing these figures might show is that VSCs are still the flagship F&I product for most dealerships. VSCs and any dealer-reinsured maintenance programs get focus because they bring people back to the selling dealer and capture the service aspect of the business.

Dealers are trying to capture business in creative ways, like offering perks with the purchase of a vehicle, and if these perks can bring the customer back to the dealership for service, there is a 75 percent chance that customer will buy another car at that dealership.

One way dealers can increase the sale of VSCs with the help of a technology partner is through menu selling. It is structured, yet non-confrontational to customers. In addition to providing a low-pressure environment and giving the customer choices, integration with VSC lenders allows the client to rate with the lenders in real time, showing the customer all options that are available with the vehicle being purchased. This provides a credibility factor in the F&I process.

Technology and Lender Relationships

Technology can bring focus and give people the tools to analyze business in an intelligent way.

One of the strategies Maxim suggests for F&I managers to analyze business intelligently on the finance side of things is to consolidate bank partnerships. If lenders get a lot of business from a dealer, they will occasionally look at less favorable deals and advance automatically.

“A lot of captive finance arms have been helping the loyal dealerships for years,” Maxim says.

“Custom reporting can help dealers evaluate who is getting their paper, as well as how much they are making when they finance through each finance source,” VisionMenu’s Dafforn says. “It gives them the ability to leverage their position with the lender by being informed about who they are making money for.”

And even though F&I managers should be looking at creative ways to get deals financed, lenders are beginning to loosen up a bit.

“There are signs of life out there,” Maxim says. “A lot of things are starting to pop back. The standards in automotive financing are definitely loosening from where they were in 2008 and 2009.”