Dealers should start experimenting with MaaS now

With Mobility as a Service (MaaS) on the verge of wider adoption, dealers need to start experimenting and put their stock of demos and overage vehicles to work, according to mobility start-up Tomorrow’s Journey whose founders will take to the stage at AM’s Automotive Retail Congress.

Ed White, group chairman, White Clarke Group, and David Betteley, chairman, Tomorrow’s Journey, will be exploring the role of disrupters in a new age of mobility which stretches well beyond the traditional ownership model when they speak at the event which takes place on May 21 2019 at the Ricoh Arena, Coventry.

Industry advisor on financial services and technological strategies, Ed White teamed up with David Betteley, a recent global board member of Jaguar Land Rover and a former chair of the Finance and Leasing Association (FLA), to launch new mobility start-up Tomorrow’s Journey. Tomorrow’s Journey connects underutilised vehicles with variable demand purely on a B2B basis.

White said: “For 90% of the time a dealer owned vehicle isn’t used and is just sitting either on a sales executive’s driveway or on the dealership’s forecourt awaiting a test drive booking. It is an asset that is not being fully utilised when it could be generating revenue for the business and enabling new driving models to be devised, trialled and tweaked.

“In a declining sales market where margins are being squeezed, dealers need to identify new ways of generating income and remaining relevant to motorists’ needs. The option is to plough on with the current ownership model regardless or to seize the initiative and start experimenting with alternatives.

“At the moment the opportunities are mostly niche and short-term but as dealers start to gain experience in the MaaS sector they can expand their services including investment in more MaaS vehicles.”

White and Betteley will discuss how dealers and OEMs can combine their traditional retail model with the emerging MaaS trend and become trailblazers themselves rather than wait for disrupters to steal the high ground.

Added White: “Those dealers and OEMs who experiment now whilst MaaS for most consumers is simply an abstract idea will be best placed to take advantage as new ways of meeting motoring needs combine with traditional ownership as we enter a new era of mobility.”

Automotive Retail Congress is designed to help the sector’s senior executives and key decision-makers to plan for a dramatically changing automotive retail environment and explore emerging trends which are likely to become mainstream in the next decade. Tickets can be booked at https://www.amretailcongress.co.uk/