Tonya Makes Automotive Technology Fast and Flexible
This month, we’re spotlighting the people who work Behind the Code at Cox. Read below to learn how our technology employees are building a better tomorrow.
Fast, lightweight innovation
For Tonya Wallace, being agile is a way of life.
We’re not just talking about being flexible and resilient (though as a hardworking mother of six, Tonya has plenty of experience with that too!). We’re referring also to Agile methodology: an IT project management approach used to deliver fast, high-quality technology solutions.
Tonya, Director of Agile Delivery at Cox Automotive, is an advocate and user of the agile methodology and its accompanying frameworks. She knows firsthand that the methodology allows for collaboration and quicker results.
“Our company drives to the same scaled agile framework, which helps to deliver high business value in short-cycle increments,” Tonya explained. “That’s the whole point of agility: to get the product out to the customer as quickly as possible, to get feedback as quickly as possible and to iterate on what that feedback is.”
Tonya leads agile delivery for four release trains. Each powers finance and insurance solutions that enable the behind-the-scenes of the car-buying process, such as digital contracting and lender aftermarket products. The newest of her release trains will lead Cox Automotive’s AWS migration to cloud services in a two-year effort.
The importance of agility really hit home for Tonya in March 2020, when COVID struck and automotive dealers could not be on-site in their offices.
“So what do you do if you’re a dealer who’s still relying on paper and face-to-face transactions?” said Tonya. “We quickly pivoted and delivered assisted remote signing out into the field. That’s the benefit of having smart people working within an agile framework. We broke down silos. People worked across different teams and trains, and we leveraged our remote environment like nobody’s business.”
Behind the code and finding the “why”
Tonya’s tech roots were planted in 2002 when she opened a small, minority-owned tech company to build custom applications with small teams of developers.
“I fell in love with requirements, automation, collaboration, iterative development and relentless improvement,” Tonya said of her first experience in the field. “I didn’t find out about Agile until years later, and I went back to school for my MBA in project management in order to enhance my understanding and knowledge about the project management discipline.”
Post-graduation, Tonya hit the ground running with her new passion and skills.
She was hired as a business analyst with the Department of Revenue, where she participated in Agile transformation. She moved on to a pharmaceutical company, where she led the cloud platform Agile team as a process specialist and trainer, coach and consulting liaison. Afterwards, she became senior scrum master and Agile coach at an automotive technology company. But in these positions, Tonya said she found the project management process to be – well, not agile.
“It was very heavy, very rigorous, very stringent,” Tonya said about one experience. “No one led with the ‘why,’ so people didn’t understand why we were doing things the way we were doing them, and if we lack buy-in, it creates gaps.”
A friend who worked at Cox recommended that Tonya explore a position with the company. In 2018, Tonya became a senior release train engineer for Cox Automotive’s DealerTrack brand. Not only did Tonya find Cox’s tech teams more conducive to Agile, but her leadership skills blossomed in Cox’s flexible environment too. Tonya has since spearheaded initiatives, facilitated DISC personality trainings and served as a thought leader in the industry.
Tonya has the heart of a teacher, and that translates to her life outside of work too. She loves being able to nurture and coach her daughter and five sons.
“The way I parent is the way I coach an agile team,” she said. “I believe the strong foundational principles of having the confidence to fail fast, self-organize, be courageous and transparent and drive toward relentless improvement builds solid character. I will often run mini retrospectives after practices and games!”
Giving everyone a voice
Tonya contrasted Cox with other companies when it comes to valuing employees.
“I love that Cox gives engineers a voice,” she said. “I’ve seen workplaces where it’s more of a ‘just sit there and code’ type of environment. Not here. They encourage communication and transparency. All teams have the ability to share ideas. We have senior leaders inboxing engineers to say things like ‘How are you? Is everything going okay? I saw you did XYZ today and I wanted to thank you.’ I’ve never had that at any other company.”
Tonya said one reason why voices are elevated at Cox is because it’s a culture of achievement.
“This is an organization of high-performers,” Tonya said (and she would know!). “What we do matters. We’re creating things that will progress our culture, our environment, our world and how we do business tomorrow.”
Tonya, who is part of Cox’s diversity and inclusion working group, added that Cox is intentional about its stance on increasing numbers of minority employees in leadership positions and nurturing talent and diverse employees within the company.
And the cherry on top?
“Sometimes in companies, you’ll find personalities clashing and a cutthroat environment. I’ve found that people here are nice. I mean, actually, genuinely nice. We’re constantly pushing the message of collaboration, communication and respect. I’ve never seen leaders so accommodating and caring.”
Interested in learning more about the people who make innovation happen at Cox? Check out the rest of our Behind the Code series and follow along on social using #BehindTheCode.
How Emmet Crafts Software Solutions at Cox
This month, we’re spotlighting the people who work Behind the Code at Cox. Read below to learn how our technology employees are building a better tomorrow.
From custom cabinets to single-sign-on
In another life, Emmet McGuire might have been a carpenter.
It’s something of a family business: his father, uncles and brother all do carpentry for a living. And while Emmet isn’t a craftsman by trade, he loves building things and always has a project happening at his home in Burlington, VT.
His talent for constructing things makes Emmet a natural fit for his role as a Lead Software Test Engineer at Cox Automotive.
“I think my family’s history of carpentry instilled in me the passion to build things the right way, which translates well to developing software,” he said.
In 2009, Emmet started working a software tester at Dealer.com (acquired by Cox Automotive in 2015). He’s been promoted many times since, becoming a QA tester, a QA engineer, a senior QA engineer, a lead QA engineer and a senior software test engineer before moving into his current position.
Emmet loves the variety of projects he’s worked on at Cox.
“I have had the opportunity to work in different product spaces over the years,” he said. “When I was part of the Dealer.com group, I worked on teams that developed our websites as well as the backend services which support our websites and inventory. I got to work on projects for large customers like Ford and Subaru, but also projects that were used by the millions of users shopping for cars on Dealer.com websites.”
Behind the code and building solutions
Emmet was an electrical engineer at a large technology company before joining Dealer.com.
“That switch was like a breath of fresh air to me,” he said. “I took computer science classes as part of my education and I always enjoyed them, but it wasn’t until I started my career as an electrical engineer that I realized hardware wasn’t for me. I wanted to work on software.”
Emmet explained that in his previous job, projects took months or even years to complete.
“But being on an Agile Scrum team at Cox Auto, we work in two-week sprints and that’s a much better pace for me. You also have a much closer working relationship with your team, and that’s what I needed to be successful.”
Emmet credits those close relationships with his growth as a technical leader. And he loves the fact that he and his colleagues have a prominent voice in the company.
“Working in tech at Cox Automotive is simultaneously fun, exciting, challenging and rewarding,” he said. “I think for a lot of companies, the testing role is looked at as an afterthought or secondary to the development team, but that couldn’t be further from the truth when it comes to Cox Auto.”
Cox’s tech team members are high performers, and Emmet said he is consistently challenged to evolve the way he develops and tests software. One example he gave was the company’s switch from traditional development and release processes to CI/CD, which brings with it a slew of challenges.
“As a team, we had to learn what the implications of that were, and how to best handle it,” he said. “I am very proud of the process that we came up with, and we feel extremely comfortable releasing production changes that impact millions of users a month multiple times a day without users noticing any issues.”
Emmet explained that when there is an issue, his team almost always knows about it before any customers do.
“For the application my team owns, we have a 99.95% availability, so we can’t have many outages and we’ve been able to keep that standard, while releasing as frequently as we do. From a testing point of view, the primary process we use for maintaining that availability through all our releases are Blue/Green deploys, and running automated tests on the inactive instance before routing traffic to the new instance. That’s a massive oversimplification, but that’s a critical process for achieving the high level of success that we have been able to achieve.”
A second family
COVID has changed a lot of things about the average workweek. Emmet believes that his team’s relationships and rapport have remained intact.
“In terms of environment and culture, my team is like my second family,” he said. “I really enjoy working with every single person, and they are all incredibly smart, thoughtful people. I don’t think there is a single person at Cox Auto that I couldn’t learn from, and that’s a very humbling experience.”
Interested in learning more about the people who make innovation happen at Cox? Check out the rest of our Behind the Code series and follow along on social using #BehindTheCode.
6 Things to Focus on in Your Tech Career
David Rice, SVP of Product & Engineering at Cox, recommends you consider these focus areas as you look for your next career move.
Want to read more about David Rice and why he’s motivated to help early career developers? Check out his blog story.
What I Wish I Had Known In My Early Career
Up Close Interview with David Rice, Senior Vice President of Product & Engineering
David Rice is a Senior Vice President of Product & Engineering at Cox Automotive and works in Austin, TX. We chatted with David about his story, his passion for cultivating early-career talent, and his advice to software developers.
Q: Hi David! Tell us about your Cox career story, and tell us what you do.
A: I was part of vAuto when it was acquired by Autotrader in 2010; at the time, I was a senior software engineer. After joining Cox, I became a product engineering leader and at some point or another, I’ve have worked on almost every retail software product.
Before vAuto, I worked for a start-up called Digital Motorworks. I got really good at fixing problems, and that was where I first got to see the effect of systems thinking: seeing how complex systems get put together. And you can put that same thinking into understanding how an organization should flow and interconnect, and how to fix its problems. For the past 10 years, I’ve been applying that same thought process: ‘how do I get the system working, and what are its breakages?’
Q: It sounds like you’ve had the opportunity to impact many projects and witness a lot of change. What have you learned from those experiences that you would share with early-career professionals?
A: All the change has led me to understand is that it’s okay not to perfectly understand everything. You know, coming from a software engineering background, I always want stuff to be binary/black and white. And the reality is, sometimes the complexity is just too high. You’re not always going to understand, and you only sometimes have the time to break things down into the smallest parts to fully understand. Accept that some level of inability to understand is okay and learn when to make decisions with incomplete knowledge.
Q: You’ve given presentations to students at the University of Texas about the things you wish you had known at the start of your career. Tell us about the backstory of those presentations.
A: When I was in college, a friend’s dad gave me a call while I was working in a non-computer science-related job. He gave me a summer job in Computer Science (CS) and fundamentally, what he said to me was: ‘I want you to come in because I think you’re going to cause trouble with the team. You don’t know what you can’t do, so you’re going to go down paths that the team has dismissed. They are moving too slow and taking too long.’ So, I got to experience that as a young professional, and it challenged me because I wanted to go in and prove myself.
I’ve seen that pattern with people who are fresh out of school. They bring new learnings and they come from places of new perspectives. At vAuto, I wanted to bring in students because I thought they provided a sense of exuberance and energy. Knowing that, I decided to go to the University of Texas to talk to some of these students and see if we could bring them on board.
Q: What was the main thing you wanted students to take away from your presentation?
A: I was told that I’d be doing an “info-session,” where I would essentially come in and talk to the students about what my company does. And I thought, ‘I don’t want to do that – that’s so boring!’ So instead, I wanted to take a perspective of “what I wish I knew.”
When you start in tech, the thing you’re most interested in is writing code and creating cool things. But the reality is, there are a whole bunch of facets of the field that you don’t figure out until later. You don’t necessarily know the right questions to ask to get you to the answers. So that’s what I wanted to talk to them about. We got great feedback from the students and my team. I’ve done the presentation about four times now. And I’ve been able to push for a lot of early-career hires at Cox. Want to know David’s top questions to ask? Check out our helpful guide.
Q: What other advice would you give to early-career developers?
A: The key is a diversity of skills. Make sure you’ve looked at different data constructs, programs, and programming languages. Having diversity of skills means that you can learn. You need to be able to demonstrate that. If you show me that you can learn skills and talk intelligently about them, that’s what I look for in hires.
One of my favorite interview questions is “how do you use software to solve problems around you that aren’t work-related?” A common behavior I’ve seen with great software developers is that they do stuff with the software even outside of their jobs. They solve real problems with it. For example, one of my early-career hires, Stacy, was active in collecting anime merchandise and she wrote a program to store her entire collection in a database. Those kinds of behaviors, that kind of passion…you can’t teach that, so I hone in on those kinds of questions in the interview process.
Q: If you could go back in time to the early stages of your career, what would you tell yourself?
A: Three things. First, I would tell myself not to get so stuck on closing doors to certain things. When I was in my early career, I was determined that I wouldn’t be in management. There was a lot of binary thought in that way. So, I would tell myself to get over myself a bit, and that it’s okay to look at other options.
Secondly, I’d ask myself: whom do I want to work with? These are people that you’re going to spend a lot of time with. Are these people that you can learn with and hang out with? Make sure they are. You spend more waking time at work than with your family.
Special thanks to David for sharing his story and insights. To learn more about vAuto, visit the company’s website. To learn more about a technology career at Cox, visit our technology page.
Career Advice from Kelley Joyner, Marketing Director at Cox Automotive
Kelley Joyner’s first role model is her mother. But there are another two dozen or so women she draws inspiration from: The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team.
For Joyner, a former competitive soccer player who is now Director of Marketing Traffic Acquisition at Cox Automotive, the team members embody teamwork, support and goal setting in a society where their accomplishments remain undervalued.
“They work well together as a team,” Joyner says. “But off the field, those women fight for personal values like integrity, equality, respect, and collaboration.”
Those are values she carries through in her work at Cox Automotive.
Joyner previously worked in performance marketing, specifically paid search for several agencies. After running the marketing initiative and the paid search campaigns for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book at a third-party firm, she knew that Cox Automotive was where she wanted to be next.
“I kept a close eye on the job opportunities at Cox Automotive, and I have been here for three years,” she says. “It was one of the best career decisions I ever made.”
As Director of Marketing Traffic Acquisition, Joyner oversees the team handling performance marketing for Autotrader and Kelley Blue Book’s consumer campaigns. That means planning, tracking and adjusting campaigns to achieve car dealers’ online traffic and lead goals. She finds the immediate, measurable impact of her work immensely satisfying.
“I love that for every penny my team spends in marketing, we know exactly what we get in return for it,” she says.
Joyner says her leadership style is rooted in building relationships. She makes personal connections and gives everyone on her team a voice in how to achieve their shared goals. Kelley believes her experience, knowledge and demonstrated proficiency is what makes her stand out in the workplace.
“In order to get people to listen, you need to prove that you’re an expert in your field,” she says. “But you have to build the relationship so that they trust your opinion.”
Read more of Kelley’s advice for your career by visiting coxenterprises.com.
Cox Automotive author recognizes women pioneers in automotive from the 1940s and ’50s
Constance Smith is an author, women’s rights advocate, inventor and Dealer Support Specialist at Dealertrack.
Constance Smith is an author, women’s rights advocate, inventor and Dealer Support Specialist at Dealertrack. And she’s on a mission. She wants to ensure that the groundbreaking contributions of female designers working in American car companies during the 1940s and 1950s is not lost to history.
In her recently-published book, Damsels in Design: Women Pioneers in the Automotive Industry, 1939-1959, Smith chronicles the overlooked or even mis-attributed legacy of 20 women. These women are responsible for safety and design advancements still used in cars today, including both the first substantial child safety seat and the safety latches and belts used to secure the seat inside the car. Another young lady penned the first Head Up Display for General Motors. Others dictated styling inside and out.
ABOUT CONSTANCE SMITH
Smith was one of only two women studying in the graduate Industrial Design Department at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute in the 1970s. After graduation, with models of an experimental safety vehicle and the first heated/cooled compartment for cars in her portfolio, General Motors recruited her to join their Advanced Concepts Studio. At the GM Tech Center, she worked on early liquid crystal displays, the technology at the heart of computer monitors, designed instrument panels and helped solve the engineering challenge of installing airbags. After leaving General Motors, she taught at the University of Bridgeport and Pratt. Mid-career, she received a NEA Award in Design Arts and conducted ergonomics research developing electronic components to assist the arthritically limited driver. Her passion for inventing remains. Smith was later placed at a Chevrolet franchise for training by GM in her quest to buy a Cadillac franchise before a downturn in the economy.
She was always struck by the lack of mentorship available to females in the automotive industry, and the institutional attitudes and discrimination that continued to hold women back.
Even while studying at Pratt Institute, she’d taken note of how women were treated differently, proposing a thesis on “Women in Industrial Design,” of which her male department did not approve.
“I wanted to give women the credit for what they’ve done – add them to our history books.” Smith explained.
Click here to read more about Constance Smith and visit jobs.coxenterprises.com to learn more about #LifeAtCox.
It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s Superman!
Derek Rich is a content developer for the Cox Automotive product design and usability group with an amazing superhero side gig.
By day, Derek Rich is a content developer for the Cox Automotive product design and usability group. But then he quietly slips out the door, makes a superhero transformation and emerges as Superman to visit sick kids in local children’s hospitals with the Cosplay Volunteers of Atlanta organization.
This superhero side gig keeps him busy, with visits to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta campuses, including Scottish Rite and Egleston, and an occasional road trip to Palmetto Children’s Hospital in South Carolina.
“I’m just a geek,” Derek laughed. “I’ve been into comics my whole life. Superman is my favorite character to dress as, but I do have Captain America and Iron Fist costumes, too.”
But it’s the kids’ reactions that keep the Man of Steel coming back.
Click here to read more about superhero Derek Rich and visit jobs.coxenterprises.com to learn more about #LifeAtCox.
A mixed bag of tech challenges? Jackie is up for the task.
Throughout the month of March, we will be exploring the people and projects who drive Cox technology forward in our Behind the Code technology series. Read below to learn how Cox is creating tomorrow’s tech solutions, today.
Leapfrogging through many projects while staying true to herself
Some say that career ladders at Cox are really more like career jungle-gyms, and Senior Technology Service Manager Jackie Callender has certainly found that to be the case. The path of this information technology service management (ITSM) leader has not been linear – rather, it has spanned many focus areas and business units, shaping her into a flexible leader.
“I started working with technology straight out of college, with a degree in Japanese language and literature, mind you; I had other plans,” Jackie laughed. “And for good reason, I have stuck with technology because of the joy, the challenge, and the satisfaction that it has brought to my life.”
Jackie has the unique career experience of working in technology for three Cox divisions – Cox Enterprises, Cox Media Group, and Cox Automotive – within just five years.
She began at Cox Enterprises’ Customer Support Center, providing management to Help Desk support teams. Next, she transferred to Cox Media Group, where she worked with leadership to help define and enforce ITSM processes and serve as a liaison to the Customer Support Center. She also worked to update processes related to change management, major incident management, problem management, and release and deployment management.
In late 2018, Jackie pursued a position on the automotive side of Cox.
“A position opened at Cox Automotive that would allow me to continue growing in ITSM and focus on change management,” Jackie said. “I had to pursue that opportunity.”
Behind the code and making an impact
Jackie is approaching her six-year anniversary with Cox, and she said that she loves her job as much as she did when she first began.
“Fast-forward to today and here I am, a change manager at Cox Automotive, supporting all Cox Auto business units, literally learning something new about our company, our industry, our products, or our support every single day. It keeps me on my toes!”
“Every tech project is meaningful to the business,” Jackie said. “Each one has a weight that it carries, and we should all be proud of each project we successfully complete.”
Not just a team – a family
Jackie and her work family are proof that tech gurus make plenty of time for fun and socializing.
“Technology is not a department full of introverts like many think,” she said. “We are people who are focused on our work, yes, and so at times we seem quiet; but we love fun, we love chatter, we love cracking jokes on each other, and hearing about our families’ latest accomplishments.”
Throughout her tech journey, Jackie has witnessed firsthand how the people at Cox make work culture truly special.
“My work families have all been amazing people that enjoy working hard and having fun while we do it, while also embracing each other’s differences and quirks – like letting me bust a move on the floor without any warning, or sing randomly while I run a Change Advisory Board meeting,” she said. “Every team I have worked with has had great people that I have enjoyed seeing every day.”
Interested in learning more about the people who make innovation happen at Cox? Check out the rest of our Behind the Code series here, and follow along on social using #BehindTheCode. Ready to explore a career here? Search for a new role today.
A ‘Clutch’ technology for drivers
Let’s say that you enjoy driving a small sedan for your workday commute, but you’re going furniture shopping this weekend and need more cargo space to bring your new stuff home. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to switch your car as needed? Vehicle subscription services – which are quickly gaining popularity with both car enthusiasts and everyday drivers – allow you to do just that.
Clutch Technologies, a part of Cox Automotive, is a platform that powers this kind of service. It’s the framework behind car subscriptions, providing the intelligence and tools needed to make them happen. Dealer groups, mobility services, and auto manufacturers like Porsche, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz use the platform to make subscriptions available to customers.
For example, Clutch provides data on subscribers’ needs and behaviors, using artificial intelligence to help dealers identify the right car for each driver. It offers data on market supply and demand to help sellers determine the right time to remove vehicles from their fleets. And Clutch provides tools to ensure seamless experiences, such as finance and insurance integrations, and logistical workflow tools to aid with delivery.
As Cox Automotive transforms the way the world buys, sells, owns and uses cars, Clutch Technologies is poised to accelerate the future of the auto industry.
Read more about Cox Automotive’s acquisition of Clutch below, or visit our website to get a glimpse of the people and businesses Behind the Code.
Cox Automotive Establishes Mobility Solutions Group, Accelerates Effort with Acquisition of Clutch Technologies
Aug 2018
Cox Automotive Mobility Solutions Group to Focus on Fleet Solutions and Consumer Mobility
ATLANTA — Cox Automotive is bringing together its investments and solutions supporting the future of mobility with the formation of a new business division: Mobility Solutions Group. For years, Cox Automotive has been investing in technology and services that position the organization to deliver advanced fleet management solutions and support evolving consumer mobility. The new business division, which is focused in part on mobility as a service, will house these solutions and investments, as well as newly acquired Clutch Technologies, a technology platform powering subscription access for the automotive industry.
“Cox Automotive is continually evolving – delivering digital retailing solutions for the immediate term while developing and investing in solutions that will fuel new models for consumer mobility and enable fleet management solutions well into the future,” said Sandy Schwartz, president, Cox Automotive. “The future of mobility as a service is a massive business opportunity, with some estimates at well in excess of $1 trillion by 2030. Our goal is to grow our presence in that part of the business and help all our partners and clients successfully navigate the many new opportunities.”
Cox Automotive is bullish on the future of automotive subscriptions. In 2014, the company created Flexdrive, a vehicle subscription technology and services company. A joint venture with Holman Enterprises since 2017, Flexdrive enables dealers and fleet owners to offer on-demand vehicle subscriptions to consumers via mobile devices. With Clutch, a consumer-focused subscription technology platform that is now part of the Cox Automotive family of brands, the company’s reach and expertise expands further. Clutch Technologies was invented and incubated as part of Cox Enterprises’ Innovation Fund. Cox Enterprises is the parent company of Cox Automotive.
Cox Automotive Mobility Solutions Group will be led by President Joe George, who previously served as the interim president of the Media Solutions Group, made up of brands Autotrader, Dealer.com and Kelley Blue Book. David Liniado, vice president of new growth and development, Jenny Bedard, head of finance, and Vince Zappa, president of Clutch Technologies, will report to George and help build a team to further develop Cox Automotive’s mobility capabilities.
“Cox Automotive has played a large role in introducing vehicle subscriptions to the marketplace,” said George. “And, we’re already pros at reconditioning, managing vehicles as assets, perfecting the consumer experience and developing elegant software solutions to make complex operations more efficient and profitable. We’re looking forward to helping clients disrupt the traditional car buying and ownership models in ways that are advantageous for their businesses.”
In addition to investing in automotive subscriptions businesses, Cox Automotive is delivering fleet services through relationships with car-sharing and ride-hailing companies such as BMW’s ReachNow, Getaround and Lyft. Cox Automotive has invested in new mobility and autonomous players including Ridecell, a ride-sharing and car-sharing technology platform, and Ouster, a maker of LIDAR sensors for autonomous vehicles. Cox Automotive has also invested in Getaround, a consumer car-sharing platform that empowers users to instantly rent and drive great cars shared by people in their city.
As consumers increasingly turn to shared fleets to meet their mobility needs, it will be essential for fleet owners and operators to ensure the maximum in-use time for their vehicles. From servicing vehicles quickly to reducing cleaning time between riders or drivers, the processes will need to be executed efficiently. Today’s technology and processes don’t account for the shifting paradigm in consumer mobility, and Cox Automotive is uniquely positioned to deliver the physical and digital solutions to fill that gap.
For example: Manheim, with its 78 physical locations that span 6,500 acres across the U.S., has already invested $27 million in its reconditioning operation since 2015. The vehicle remarketing company reconditioned 2.9 million vehicles last year alone at Manheim facilities. One-stop recon capabilities benefit fleet owners who need vehicles quickly cleaned and maintained on a regular basis.
Additionally, RMS Automotive has helped sell more than 1.4 million vehicles globally through digital Private Stores for OEMs, captives and other large vehicle portfolio owners. In fleet management, vehicle portfolio management is the disciplined approach to managing a portfolio throughout its lifecycle and is critical to profitability. As part of that, RMS Automotive helps fleet owners with remarketing and knowing exactly when to sell units and for what price in order to increase portfolio returns and residual values. RMS Automotive’s AI-powered Optimization product suite provides fleet owners the vehicle-specific insights that drive data-driven decisions and improve overall portfolio performance.
Clear signs of how the automotive industry is being transformed by technology can be seen in the 2018 Cox Automotive Evolution of Mobility study, which will be published later this month. Mobility services are beginning to be more widely embraced by consumers as an alternative to traditional vehicle ownership with ride-hailing usage nearly doubling and car sharing and vehicle subscription services gaining traction.
Research shows that consumer attitudes about the necessity of vehicle ownership are gradually changing, with 39 percent of respondents saying access to mobility is necessary, but owning a vehicle is not, a 5 percent increase since 2015. For urban consumers, 57 percent indicate access to mobility is more important than vehicle ownership, a 13 percent increase since 2015. This means increasingly more consumers are prioritizing technology solutions that provide easy mobility over traditional vehicle ownership.
By bringing together its investments and technologies into a new business division, Cox Automotive can more quickly capitalize on the shift from vehicle ownership to usage.
What the Clutch acquisition means
Subscription access is now available in 26 states across the U.S. through Clutch’s growing roster of partners including BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Porsche as well as approximately 30 dealer groups. Clutch was one of the first to offer the ease and accessibility of vehicle subscriptions in 2014.
“Cox Automotive’s formation of the Mobility Solutions Group will accelerate our plans to activate subscription access across the entire automotive industry by integrating the Clutch technology platform into Cox Automotive’s core business,” said Zappa. “The combined power of our technologies will fuel great advancements for our clients and consumers alike.”
How the Clutch platform works
The Clutch platform provides the intelligence, capabilities and tools required to deliver vehicle subscriptions, including:
- A white-label solution that extends the customer relationship outside of the showroom and into consumers’ driveways.
- Management of vehicles using Clutch’s patent-pending technology which uses artificial intelligence to assign the right vehicle to every subscriber while maintaining a low ratio of vehicles to paying subscribers, thus keeping costs in check.
- Powerful data on subscribers’ needs and behaviors. The Clutch platform learns, remembers and anticipates what is important to every subscriber in order to build deep, trusted relationships.
- Subscription workflow tools to facilitate easy operational integration and delivery.
About Cox Automotive
Cox Automotive Inc. makes buying, selling and owning cars easier for everyone. The global company’s 34,000-plus team members and family of brands, including Autotrader®, Clutch, Dealer.com®, Dealertrack®, Kelley Blue Book®, Manheim®, NextGear Capital®, VinSolutions®, vAuto® and Xtime®, are passionate about helping millions of car shoppers, 40,000 auto dealer clients across five continents and many others throughout the automotive industry thrive for generations to come. Cox Automotive is a subsidiary of Cox Enterprises Inc., a privately-owned, Atlanta-based company with revenues exceeding $20 billion. coxautoinc.com
About Clutch
Clutch’s mission is to enable vehicle subscription across the automotive industry. Clutch’s fully integrated platform handles all of the consumer interaction along with the management and workflow tools required to deliver a branded vehicle subscription service. Today, Clutch’s technology is powering flexible subscription services for dealers and OEM’s in 26 states across the country. Learn more about Clutch at driveclutch.com.
The phone call that changed her life
During the fall of 2018, Daisy Hibbard, Scrum Master for Dealertrack, a Cox Automotive brand, received a phone call that dramatically changed her life. Never backing down from a challenge, Daisy fought for her health and her family and came out on top!
Two years ago, Daisy was the Manager of Internal Events and Community Relations for NextGear Capital, a Cox Automotive brand. However, little did she know that her position would be impacted after Cox Automotive announced a workforce reduction. She was devastated but determined to get back in the working world as soon as she could. Daisy was pleased with the way she was treated when she was laid off and was hopeful to return to Cox. Within 90 days, after earning her Professional Scrum Master certification she was hired as a Scrum Master for Dealertrack. Ironically, her new job was in the same building where she had started her career several years ago.
During a Monday morning team meeting, Daisy received an important phone call that would forever change her life—she was diagnosed with Stage 1 breast cancer. Immediately after her doctor called, she contacted her husband of 13 years, Brett, to share the news. Any person would have fallen apart upon receiving this news, but not Daisy. She kept her head high and willingly went back into the meeting staying calm and collected. Daisy explained, “I just kept repeating in my head, ‘No need to panic. I have the most curable kind of cancer. It’s going to be ok.’”
There are not many people in the world that can receive such traumatic information and keep level-headed in a meeting. Luckily, Daisy was able to maintain a positive attitude throughout the duration of her chemotherapy. She had a loving and supportive team at Cox who were her cheerleaders from the beginning, which helped her keep pushing through.
“I don’t think I could have done all this without the love and support from my coworkers. It made this whole process a lot easier and less painful.”
Not a worry in sight about stacks of bills and money, Daisy was able to focus on relaxing and doing the things she enjoys. She attributes this freedom to the Cox employee healthcare benefits.
“I will forever be grateful for Cox’s amazing healthcare benefits. Instead of having to stress about a mountain of hospital bills, my husband and I were able to stay on track with our goals of creating a garden and planting fruit trees. I don’t think I could have made it through chemotherapy without Cox’s short-term disability benefit.”
The process and several rounds of chemo is physically and emotionally draining, but Daisy didn’t let anything prevent her from doing the things she loves. After her final round of chemo, she and her husband planted six fruit trees and built five gardens. They also began composting and planting several flowers to attract honey bees. According to Daisy, she says; “my neighbors probably think cancer turned me into a ‘hippie,’ but cancer made me realize what’s most important in life: the small things.”
Thank you, Daisy, for sharing your story! If you want to read more articles like this one, view our open jobs or experience a day in the life at Cox? Venture over to our Careers page to learn more about our jobs in Tech.
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