Manufacturers

Purchasing a car can be an intimidating and frustrating process for the car buyer. According to the 2018 Cox Automotive Car Buyer Journey, 1 in 6 buyers will not purchase from the first dealership they visit simply because of a poor sales experience. An inherently complex sales process that includes test drives, trade-in appraisals, deal term negotiations , F&I, and vehicle delivery creates opportunities for your staff to either delight or lose a buyer.

Missing cars and lost sales

One of the biggest annoyances for buyers is wasted time. Armed with mobile devices, social networking, and endless information at their fingertips, buyers have come to demand speed, convenience, and control in the course of all their purchases. Research by The Rikess Group determined that one of the biggest time wasters happens at the beginning of the sales process—the test-drive. Sales personnel spend on average 15 minutes just locating keys and cars!

Intelligent inventory

What if you could kick-off the sales process—right at the test drive—with an exceptional experience for your buyer? What if you could cut those 15 minutes down to 5 minutes or less? Would your buyer be more engaged and satisfied with the rest of the sales experience? You bet they would! What if your sales manager received an alert when a test-drive returns to the lot and is waiting to greet your customer when they return? That’s hands-on service and more time saved for your buyer!

So, how do you make this happen? Intelligent Inventory. Intelligent Inventory leverages advancements in Internet of Things technology to equip your vehicles with the ability to communicate useful data—like their locations—in real-time. Sales people can make buyer-requested vehicles available for test drives within minutes of a request, making the best use of everybody’s time. Managers can receive alerts when a test drive car returns to the lot so they can greet the customer and provide an extra level of attention that helps close the sale. You can even show the exact location of vehicles on your web site so buyers have the confidence that the car they’re interested in is physically on the lot!

Chris Moore, new car sales manager at Atlanta’s Hennessy Buick GMC, said this about the industry’s leading Intelligent Inventory solution from Cognosos, “RadioTrax saves our personnel 10 to 15 minutes per customer, greatly improving both the buying experience and our associates’ efficiency. When someone wants to test drive a car they saw on our website, we can pull it up to the show room door almost instantly – regardless of where it currently is within our seven lots.”

Wow! That is an amazing transformation! And Intelligent Inventory can do so much more, like improve used car profitability, analyze test drive data, and increase the efficiency of inventory reconciliation.

RadioTrax inventory management solution

RadioTrax—the complete IoT Inventory management solution from Cognosos—is the smarter more productive way to run your company. By connecting your inventory and providing real-time movements, RadioTrax empowers your team with the tools to provide seamless customer experiences, increase sales, and optimize operations.

Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) wireless products are rapidly becoming a key requirement for enterprise Internet of Things (IoT) applications. Unlike consumer IoT products such as thermostats, security systems, fitness products, etc., the scale of enterprise IoT deployments is far larger than commodity wireless technologies—Wi-Fi, RFID, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), Zigbee—can cost effectively support.

LPWA is excellent for connecting 100s or 1,000s of devices that need to send small amounts of data over a long range, while conserving battery life and minimizing costs. Many enterprise IoT applications need to transmit only a small amount of information—for example, an inventory tracker in a car that transmits location data when a car moves around and between an auto dealership’s lots, or exits and re-enters the area during a test drive. The low power requirements of such a device allow tasks to be done with minimal cost and battery drain.

What Makes LPWA a Perfect Fit?

LPWA defines wireless networks for IoT devices characterized by low power consumption and long-range capabilities, making LPWA ideal for enterprise IoT applications.

• LPWA saves on power: Low power is one of the primary differentiators of LPWA. It’s easy to transmit data long distances if devices are connected to a power source. LPWA sensors on devices being monitored, however, can be left alone inside a building, outdoor locations, and other difficult-to-access areas for very long periods of time—years in most cases—without battery swaps. This is in stark contrast to the power-hungry nature of cellular Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices.
• LPWA operates over a wide area: Anyone who has used Wi-Fi, RFID, BLE or Zigbee knows how important it is for devices to be located close to an access point or reader. Instead of requiring dozens of access points or readers, LPWA devices are designed for long range, point-to-point communications where a single gateway can cover a large outdoor or indoor area that is owned or operated by an enterprise user.

What are the Benefits of LPWA?

LPWA is cheaper to deploy and operate than other wireless options. The cost benefits can be broken down into infrastructure, communications, and devices.

• Light infrastructure makes LPWA acquisition affordable: Although LPWA is wide-area, it requires far less infrastructure than Wi-Fi or BLE networks. A typical enterprise LPWA implementation requires only one or two gateways, reducing the costs of deployment, maintenance and operations. LPWA’s cost per square mile of coverage is far lower than any other wireless technology.
• Unlicensed spectrum bands make LPWA operations cost-effective: Radio frequency spectrum is divided into licensed and unlicensed bands. Licensed spectrum is very expensive; Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) spend billions annually on licensed spectrum and then pass this cost on to users. For IoT applications like automotive telematics, MNOs and licensed spectrum are the only option when continuous mobile coverage is required.Unlicensed bands are free to use without limitation, provided devices comply with applicable regulations, like FCC Part 15 in the U.S. This is why BLE and WiFi are ubiquitous. Unlicensed spectrum is not appropriate for public networks covering cities states due to potential interference, but it’s ideal to cover tens of square miles in and around enterprise owned buildings and campuses.
• Low-cost devices make LPWA scalable: The primary components of IoT devices are sensors, radios and batteries. Sensors can monitor location, temperature, vibration, humidity and more. The ubiquity of smart phones has driven the cost of most sensors down to well under a dollar. Radios are the key to both the range, cost and battery life of devices. By combining intelligent signal processing with commodity radio components, costs of devices can be driven down to just a few dollars in high volume. Cellular devices required to operate over an MNO’s infrastructure, however, are far more costly.

Conclusion

Companies using LPWA for enterprise IoT vs. other wireless technologies benefit from fast deployments, low operating costs and low device costs.

Low power wide area networks will continue to revolutionize the way companies do business by allowing them to collect data in ways that until recently were cost prohibitive. As LPWA evolves we are certain that it will continue to help businesses lower operating costs, improve customer relationships, and operate smarter.

RadioTrax

RadioTrax—the complete IoT Inventory management solution from Cognosos—is the smarter more productive way to run your company. By connecting your inventory and providing real-time movements, RadioTrax empowers your team with the tools to provide seamless customer experiences, increase sales, and optimize operations.

Atlanta’s tech scene in 2017 had its fair share of funding stories and new IT centers. Cognosos is extremely proud to be mentioned as one of the top Atlanta technology stories of the year.

According to the Atlanta Business Chronicle article “2017 in review: Atlanta’s Top 10 technology stories of the year”, Cognosos earned a spot on the list by securing Series A funding from another Atlanta based company, Cox Enterprises. The news story goes on to say:

Wireless technology startup Cognosos has raised $7.1 million from Cox Enterprises.

The Atlanta-based company has developed a low-power wireless technology and hardware that allows sensors in cars, parking meters and other devices to transmit data.

Other investors in the Series A include Covalent Partners and Pete Kight, who launched CheckFree and sold it to Fiserv for $4.4 billion in 2007. Former Cisco executive Sandeep Vohra will take over as CEO of Cognosos.

Cognosos was launched by Sanjoy Malik, Jim Stratigos and Nish Parikh in 2014 with technology developed at Georgia Tech’s Smart Antenna Lab.

See the full article on Atlanta Business Chronicle