Five ways the Canada Digital Adoption Plan can help your dealership

The Canada Digital Adoption Program (CDAP) can provide your dealership with up to $15,000 in grant funding to cover the cost of working with a digital advisor to investigate your options and create a digital transformation plan that will enable you to deliver top-of-the-line services to your customers.

CDAP funding can help your dealership increase online sales, stay connected with your customers, and manage your products and services. We’ve summarized five ways the Boost Your Business Technology grant can help you accelerate your dealership’s digital transformation journey and stay ahead of the curve in your competitive industry:

1. Enhance the customer experience

Your dealership communicates with its customers all the time — but if you’re relying on spreadsheets and calendar reminders, you may be missing opportunities to engage with them as often as you could. Take advantage of tools to automate maintenance reminders, emails about new sales opportunities, and other communications to provide your customers with the best possible experience.

CDAP can provide the funding you need to elevate all aspects of the customer experience — from digital marketing and advertising systems to help you reach new customers, to digital retailing solutions to streamline the online sales process.

Additionally, customer relationship management (CRM) platforms can automate your client communications to remind them to bring in their vehicles for maintenance, suggest a time to renew their vehicle lease, or contact them about new opportunities at your dealership — ensuring that you always stay in touch and helping them to never miss an appointment.

2. Manage your parts and services

Your dealership offers a wide variety of services and maintains a large inventory base to ensure you have the parts available to support your customers’ needs. However, it can be time-consuming and repetitive to keep track of every item in your inventory and schedule service reminders.

CDAP can provide the funding to automate these tasks and make your service and inventory management more effective. For example, you could purchase a service management suite to automate service scheduling check-ins and pick-ups with your customers.

Inventory management suites can help you track the items you currently have in your inventory and alert you when parts are running low. This ensures you will always have the parts you need in stock to support your customers.

3. Make data-driven decisions

You need to make decisions to drive your dealership’s performance and stay competitive in today’s marketplace — but you need access to the right information before you begin. Industry-specific software such as a dealership management system (DMS) can help you get started by providing valuable insights into your business and operations.

Through CDAP, a digital advisor can help you identify the right platform for your dealership so you can better track your most popular products and services, measure your productivity, and monitor sales. These solutions can provide you with data to make informed decisions to increase sales, improve work processes, and support the success of your business.

4. Increase sales

One of your goals as a business owner is to maximize your profits. CDAP will enable you to invest in a variety of digital solutions to help your dealership get customers into your store, track sales leads, predict the future needs of your customers, and boost your numbers.

For example, CDAP can enable your dealership to invest in marketing software to help identify, track, analyze, and nurture leads to achieve results.

5. Manage your back office

Your back office is an essential part of your dealership — and your accounting department, HR department, and more all need to run efficiently to contribute to the overall success of your business.

CDAP funding can help you invest in the technology solutions you need to decrease the time your back office spends on repetitive tasks and increase productivity. Tools such as cloud-based accounting and bookkeeping can help your finance team generate and manage invoices, enter data, and track expenses.

Additionally, AI-powered workflow automation can help your HR department answer common questions from your employees — saving time and increasing productivity. Investing in the right technology can help the back office of your dealership run more efficiently.

How can MNP help?

MNP can help your dealership get started on its CDAP journey and guide you through every step of your path towards digital transformation. Our business advisors work with hundreds of dealerships across Canada and have the experience to keep you moving forward with tailored solutions to address existing challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.

We can help your dealership:

Assess your eligibility

Our qualified advisors will help you review the funding criteria for CDAP to help you determine whether your business qualifies, and which stream would be best for your dealership.

Support your grant application

An MNP advisor will help you complete your application to help maximize your funding and the likelihood of approval for your dealership.

Explore your business needs

We can help you review your operations, current technology, and business strategy to help identify where your dealership can benefit from digital transformation — and what solutions you should prioritize.

Review your solutions

A digital advisor will help you review digital solution options and approaches to determine the best fit for your unique business needs.

Develop a strategy and roadmap

MNP’s advisors will design and present a comprehensive digital strategy for your dealership with the steps, timelines, and resources to achieve your near- and long-term transformation objectives.