Shaping
Business
Networks
Car Trade in the Information Age
Car Trade
WhitePaper
possible of their questions on the subject of
mobility. The Business Model of the Infor-
mation Age allows to react to these chal-
lenges. Modern information systems and
communication technology enable the inte-
gration of the services offered by the part-
ners involved in the supply chain across
company boundaries. This offers individual
businesses the opportunity to concentrate
on their respective core competences and at
the same time to provide the customer with
a higher level of service.
In order to achieve this integration, the
internal business processes within the indi-
vidual companies must be optimized. Only
then can cross-company collaborative
processes be set up that will ultimately form
the basis of a comprehensive supply of
products and services.
Collaborative processes foster mutual trust
between the partners involved in the supply
chain – a worthwhile challenge: the imple-
mentation of cross-company processes
guarantees long-term competitive advan-
tages for car trade companies and increas-
es their efficiency and profitability.
Management Summary
The worldwide liberalization of the markets,
profound political influences and frequent
new technical developments present car
trade businesses with new challenges all the
time. Faced with these challenges, manufac-
turers, importers, wholesalers and dealers
are forced to subject their business models
to critical questioning and to adjust them.
The disappearance of traditional barriers to
trade and increasingly customer-friendly
legislation are opening the markets to new
competitors, but at the same time they are
also enabling businesses in the motor indus-
try to expand into new markets themselves.
Thanks to global competition, margins are
coming under pressure; concentration in the
market is proceeding rapidly. The develop-
ment of new electronic components and
telematics services is shifting the balance in
the competitive relationship between manu-
facturer, imp