Cox Automotive is relying largely on market growth to realize a significant return on its $4 billion acquisition of Dealertrack Technologies last October.
It “was not a cost-savings play,” said Mike Burgiss, Cox’s vice president of digital retailing, but rather, a move to combine “a sum of the parts.” Combining the platforms was about “how much faster and how much better can you be when you put those together,” he told AFN.
Nearing the anniversary of the deal’s announcement, the biggest change has been “overt alignments” of leadership and resources, added Jason Barrie, Dealertrack’s vice president of market performance. “Many officers from Dealertrack have taken up parallel or comparable positions at Cox,” he said.
Now, Atlanta-based Cox Automotive has brought together Dealertrack, Dealer.com, and its newest subsidiary MakeMyDeal in an expanded effort to digitize the car-buying process with its Digital Retailing solution. The solution — launched in March — integrates MakeMyDeal into Dealertrack’s secure credit application and F&I portal to allow consumers and dealers the ability to structure and agree to deal terms online, then transition to in-store to finalize the deal.
