Finding Your Fit

Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) rely on a variety of vendors to facilitate their digital marketing. For those partnerships to be successful, they must align on a number of things. The first is a clear, actionable understanding of your needs and what your company is trying to achieve. Successful engagements thrive on this type of cohesive understanding. 

But it doesn’t stop there. Mutually beneficial partnerships are realized with alignment of the following:

Organizational Experience/Expertise

Does your brand require deep expertise with your specific industry and customer base? Might an outside perspective prove beneficial? Alignment in this area leads to better business outcomes. Engaging with the expertise that your business objectives require may involve breaking some standards and considering innovative approaches. Or, it may not. Engaging the right vendors with the right mix of the experience and expertise your company needs can help ensure success. 

Integration Capability

OEMs use different application programming interfaces (APIs) and technology platforms depending on their needs. Is your company engaging vendors that can easily integrate with the APIs or platforms you have deemed necessary for your particular needs? Working with vendors that work with similar technology, have proven integration capabilities and understand your platforms will help a partnership run smoothly from the start. Also, understanding what other technology the vendor works with on their own (proprietary, third party or otherwise) helps align, and possibly alert, all parties to data streams not available otherwise. When your company is engaging vendors who can also anticipate your future needs in this category, the engagement will be more likely to flourish. 

Value & Cost

This is about working with vendors who are committed to creating additional value for your brand. Often that can take the form of discounts, exclusive promotions, better rates for your dealers/dealer groups, or any number of items that can help generate more agreeable outcomes. Finding and engaging vendors that are giving you priority pricing or value-added package pricing can help facilitate long standing, fruitful relationships.

Technical Expertise & Experience

Time to add a little future-facing flavor to the conversation. It’s not only how the vendor can help you today, but also in a few years’ time. Is your brand engaging with vendors who not only understand your vision for the future, but can help you get there? What are you both willing and able to explore in terms of a future integration that may not be part of the current program? Essentially, how your brand and vendor align here is going to help you get ahead, and stay at the cutting edge. 

Dealer Support Model

Are you engaging with vendors that are aligned with how you operate as an OEM? Many OEMs have a national presence and a retail network that must work congruently, but also independently when necessary. If you’re an OEM as such, are you working with vendors that have the experience and capabilities to handle that level of complexity? When your brand and vendor are aligned on this topic, you both will be better able to serve your dealer or retail network with the most effective solutions for the various requests and escalations that inevitably come through.  Conversely, your brand may not need such systems and processes in place for a particular program. Aligning on a model that best suits how your retail partners want or need to engage, provides a better solution for the results you’re seeking.  

Looking through this, it seems like a lot on which brands and vendors need to align. And that’s because it is. Your OEM or brand may actually want to consider engaging a holistic digital solutions provider, like Shift Digital, to help you select, manage, and align your digital vendors to your business needs on your behalf. Shift Digital not only leads the industry in this way, but we actually invented it.
Shift Digital’s thorough process for vetting, training, aligning, and certifying vendors ensures retailer compliance with brand standards and seamless integration of vendor data. We’re also able to negotiate better prices from vendors while ensuring services meet brand standards for security, compliance, and other legal requirements. Think of us as the experts who not only know how to do the heavy lifting, but actually want to do the heavy lifting. And we’re strong enough to let you and your team take all the credit.

To find out more about how Shift Digital can help you find and engage the right digital vendors contact a dedicated Shift Digital representative today.