Automotive marketing & sales

The automotive industry is under unprecedented pressure to increase customer satisfaction and make sales and marketing more efficient. In light of a stagnating market and increasing competition, incentive spending has risen substantially, thus massively eroding profits. Top management decisions are clouded by a multitude of conflicting interests such as volume demands, market share objectives and production demands. We support our clients in facing these challenges by developing the relevant actions to increase efficiency in marketing and sales. Together, we can achieve real sales excellence.

The automotive industry is under unprecedented pressure to increase customer satisfaction and make sales and marketing more efficient. In light of a stagnating market and increasing competition, incentive spending has risen substantially, thus massively eroding profits. Top management decisions are clouded by a multitude of conflicting interests such as volume demands, market share objectives and production demands.

While efficiency potential is tapped systematically in engineering, production and purchasing, there is still significant room for improvement in the area of sales.

On average, today's market players consider their own sales performance to be satisfactory, but not good. Emerging brands in particular see significant opportunities to improve their own sales operations. Their weaknesses are mainly in fleet and used car sales.

Our goal: Support our clients in improving efficiency to achieve real sales excellence

In close cooperation with our clients, we tackle a wide range of strategic issues and solve operational problems. With our 120 experienced automotive experts located at 23 offices worldwide, our team's industry and consulting experience guarantees that we can generate tangible value for our clients. By working on a variety of projects with OEMs and dealers, we have acquired broad and in-depth experience in automobile sales and marketing

We have also gained special expertise in the area of retail performance improvement through numerous projects for major clients. In the case of a major European OEM, we were able to realize significant sales (+28%) and profitability (+150%) improvements within a two-year period. We achieved this by thoroughly assessing dealer performance and benchmarking it to best practices, and defining the necessary targets and measuring results.

Over the past few years, the expertise Roland Berger has developed in the area of brand strategy and brand image development has proven our ability to deal with the increasing challenges of successfully managing brands in a highly competitive market environment. In the past year, we have helped a leading European car manufacturer align its branding strategy with future growth targets by evaluating its product name strategy and comparing it with those of competitors. As a result, a consistent strategy has been developed that will help our client adjust its product portfolio in the medium- to long-term. In the future, it will also help develop an even stronger brand in the market for passenger vehicles.

Our increasing number of dealer network restructuring projects has helped build the reputation of Roland Berger's Automotive Competence Center. This Competence Center is considered a reliable and efficient partner in mastering the future challenges of dealer network organization. By analyzing the current market structure and defining what the future network should look like, investors could be identified to cover gaps. What's more, a consolidated business plan could be developed for a significantly improved future network.

Together with our clients, we want to improve efficiency and support them in achieving outstanding results. This means improving the efficiency of operations, exceeding customer and dealer expectations and turning sales excellence into market share gains.