This week, Auto/Mate Dealership Systems unveiled Guard/Mate, what the company contends is the industry’s first data protection service for dealerships.
In response to the growing concerns of many dealers about third-party vendors’ access to dealership data, Auto/Mate insisted it is taking a proactive approach to help dealers manage vendor access.
The company explained Guard/Mate can provide dealers with the information they need to regain control of their data. Guard/Mate can audit the vendors that have access to Auto/Mate’s dealership management system.
On a monthly basis, every dealer can receive a list of all the vendors who have access to the dealer’s data, as well as when they access it and from which part of the system the data was pulled.
With a list of previously authorized vendors from Auto/Mate as a starting point, dealers can first notify Auto/Mate if any vendors are pulling data that shouldn’t be.
Often when dealers cancel an agreement with a third-party vendor, the company pointed out they fail to notify their DMS provider. Without notification, the DMS provider could unwittingly allow continued access to that vendor.
Jim Ziegler, president and chief executive officer of Ziegler SuperSystems, said he encountered this situation in his practice.
“A large Chrysler dealer I do business with recently audited their DMS,” Ziegler recapped.
“We found 87 different vendors extracting data from his DMS. Some of these vendors he wasn’t even doing business with anymore,” Ziegler continued.
Upon notification from the dealer of unauthorized access, Auto/Mate can immediately shut off that vendor’s access.
For the vendors who are allowed to access the dealer’s DMS, Auto/Mate can recommend that dealers review their contracts and demand the removal of any language that grants the vendors any rights or license to share or re-sell their data in any way.
Guard/Mate will be rolled out to Auto/Mate customers beginning in February.
“Everyone in the industry agrees that dealers own their data and should have the right to grant access to any company they choose and that the DMS vendor should not sell, share or trade the dealers’ data,” stated Auto/Mate president and CEO Mike Esposito.
“However, the problem is that dealers change third-party vendors and may not know who is actually accessing their data nor do they know what type of data a vendor is mining from the dealer database,” Esposito continued.
“At Auto/Mate we feel that this issue is of paramount importance to our dealers and want to ensure that all of our dealers have Guard/Mate so for that reason Auto/Mate is not charging its dealers for Guard/Mate,” Esposito went on to say.
To learn more about Guard/Mate, stop by booth No. 320 during the upcoming National Automobile Dealers Association Convention and Expo in Las Vegas or set an appointment at www.automate.com/nada.html.
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