10:50 am, March 26, 2026
The automotive industry has a problem with efficiency and disconnected systems are costing companies revenue.
That is according to a new white-paper report by Keyloop, which found that 94% of car dealers are operating with significant inefficiencies in their businesses.
The study, presented at Car Dealer Live, found that large franchise dealerships could be missing out on as much as £800,000 in annual margins, as a result of due to poor system integration and operational friction.
The report argues that, as dealers adopt more and more digital tools and systems, they have been left with a ‘messy, complex tech stack’ that is now holding them back.
The session was hosted by Car Dealer’s James Batchelor and saw Keyloop’s Tim Smith take attendees through the findings.
The full white-paper can be downloaded here, and the session can be watched by visiting the Car Dealer Live website where you can purchase a replay ticket. This will allow you to watch back each session, including Motorway’s, in-full on video to watch back at your leisure.
Speaking on stage in Gaydon last week, Smith said: ‘Every single link in the chain has the potential for us as an industry – and you as dealers and manufacturers – to lose energy, time, money and increase risk.
‘We are really trying to deliver this from that concept and address those problems.
‘This is a collaborative effort. It is not done by just technology companies, it’s not done by training companies, it’s not done by OEMs and dealers – this is a problem that is all the way through the industry.
‘I look at it from a macro level – so when we’re taking supply out from production into the retail industry – every single point in that process, every single link in that chain, increases risk, increases risk, increases complexity and potentially we see loss of revenue, systems not talking to each other, the reeking of information.
‘That is the concept of what we are talking about.’
Elsewhere, the report found that swapping between various systems is creating a major drag on car dealers, with employees switching between applications nearly 1,200 times per day.
The study says that this has resulted in up to four hours being lost every week – the equivalent to 32 days per year.
The issue is then further compounded by workers then taking an average of 23 minutes to regain focus after switching tasks.
Addressing the challenges from a tech perspective, Smith added: ‘The compounding of short-termism by OEMs, by retailers, by all of us – because we are in a margin-constraint industry – has caused a lot of short term decisions, architecturally through systems.
‘We manage 12 DMSes around the world and a lot of them were designed a long time ago.
‘We are trying to extract that information out of them but we’ve got to keep the industry moving and running.’
The full white-paper can be downloaded here, and the session can be watched by visiting the Car Dealer Live website where you can purchase a replay ticket.
Watch (and listen on Spotify) James Baggott’s highlights of Car Dealer Live 2026 below.
