Fix Auto - Index

Fix Auto - Magazine02-en - Index

one repAIrer’s VIeW
THE NETWORK
MAKES MORE
THINGS POSSIBLE
FOR REPAIRERS
In busIness sInce 1984, RANDy STABLER Is the owner of sIx body
shops In the Los AngeLes AreA wIth 150 empLoyees And totAL sALes
of 18 mILLIon doLLArs.
he took tIme to offer hIs vIews on the wAy our Industry Is chAngIng.
Mark Do you have a long-term vision or strategy
for your business and for the industry?
Randy Stabler One thing I learnt in business:
long-term visions don’t always play out as
expected because the circumstances that
prevail at the time you develop the strategy
will not exist five years later.
M Are there professionals in the industry who
work with long-term strategies?
RS Absolutely! I’ve visited a number of organizations
that have long-term strategies
and others that focus on the short term.
For example, insurance companies generally
have a long-term vision and a corresponding
strategy.
M How would you describe your relationships
with insurers?
RS We feel we’re in a unique position because
we’re a little bit bigger than some organizations.
We believe we still have the opportunity to
talk to decision-makers. However, even at our
size, we have our limitations. It’s very difficult
to market to a large insurance company
where you are dealing with multiple tiers of
people. Our core competency is fixing cars.
We don’t have the people or the infrastructures
to market our services to the highest
levels. I can market at the local level and at
the regional level, perhaps, but with national
insurance companies I find it very difficult to
have a good, close and meaningful dialogue.
M Do you think that in the medium term you
will have to deal with people at a higher level?
RS Absolutely. Until a few years ago in this
country, the decision-making process for
choosing a repair facility to work with an
insurance company was on a relationship
basis, rather than performance-based.
Today, with information technologies, the
performance of repairs done is being graded
with much more accuracy and detail. No
longer are decisions being based on relationships,
but on performance. Because
of this shift, the insurance company does
not need local area people to create the
relationship in order to have local knowledge.
They can measure single shops and large
groups of shops based on their performance,
on how they take care of their
customers, on how they control costs and
the speed at which they fix cars. The more
data becomes available, the less important
relationships becomes. In the very near
future, decisions by insurance companies
to work with body shops will be made at
the highest corporate levels.
M What do you think of business networking?
RS Creating networks of body shops is a
difficult concept, and the reason is that most
networks in the past have not been focused
on the body shop’s needs, but rather on the
needs of the network. This has not been a
win-win situation. Recently I’ve been involved