Auto Trader已经踏上了一段旅程. 曾经是著名的线下出版物, the company now owns one of the UK’s most visited websites and is recognised as an innovative tech employer and a 全球最大的博彩平台数字社区的重要组成部分.
因为这个原因, we wanted to catch up with Auto Trader’s Technology Director, Chris Kelly to talk about the company’s remarkable transformation and to discover what the near future has in store for the business.
Could you tell us a little bit more about Auto Trader as an organisation and your goals as a business?
今天，Auto Trader在美国经营着一家汽车贸易公司.K.美国最大的汽车市场. 不过，我们的品牌历史相当悠久, originally starting as a magazine publishing company over 40 years ago. 但是，自2013年以来，我们一直是数字化的. 在这之前, there was a good 15 year transition where we moved all of our revenues from publishing through to online only. 那段时间我一直在Auto Trader工作, 到现在才20多年, 这是一个令人兴奋的转变.
Interestingly even though we transitioned all of our revenues online over that time, 直到2013年, 2014, we still didn't 真的 consider ourselves to be a digital company.
So, 真的, it’s only since then that we've had a further transformation around culture and how we think of ourselves as a business.这绝对是一段旅程.
I imagine your role has taken on many iterations during those 20 years, 你目前在公司的角色是什么?
是的，所以你是对的. 所以我十大正规博彩网站评级了... 好吧, 当时被称为新媒体开发公司, 本质上是软件工程师, 我做了很多事
我现在是技术总监. 我想说，这是CTO和CIO的结合. 我和艾莉森·罗斯在一个盒子里工作. So, between us we cover people, platform and operations. A venn diagram would show that I tend to be more architecture and tech strategy whilst Alison would be more people, 文化与环境. 然后在中间有一个巨大的交叉, 哪个是技术运营团队, 产品团队, 数据分析, 这是我们之间的事.
In terms of the journey from the magazine to a fully digital business, what were the main barriers that you found in making that transition and how did you overcome them?
这是个好问题. 回到杂志时代, it was further complicated by the fact we operated via a regional model. Effectively you had thirteen individual, small businesses each publishing a magazine. 我们的心态改变了, moving to something that's more centralised and a lot simpler, 汇集了许多不同的品牌名称, 诸如此类的事情.
We just went through a couple of years of, 真的, just simplification. Making things how you think they should be if you were a digital startup, but kind of retrofitting that to an organisation that's thirty-odd years old. It was a big challenge; to reset how we think about our purpose and our values remodelling ourselves as a digital company going forward.
这很有趣. So the company applied a startup mentality to an existing business. Are you ever approached by other companies that are trying to make a similar transition?
Yes, we host, and talk to people, and share stuff with all sorts of organisations. We are always 非常 happy to spend a couple of hours in a room just understanding other organisations from all sorts of different industries. 它们总是有益的对话.
People have often got the same challenges but they've had to tackle them in a different order, 或者类似的东西. 我不认为有什么灵丹妙药. There's a rough checklist of things you would probably want to go through. We've talked to organisations that are just beginning that journey, 半道上, 或者已经完成了. We're 真的 happy to share stuff on organisational transformation, culture, technology. We can share a lot of the orders that we tackled those challenges. Not to say that it was perfect, that's just how it fell for us. 说实话，我们花了很长时间? Fifteen years, actively transitioning, is quite a long time.
进入此时此地, Auto Trader's recent market report stated that you believe consumers will buy cars as if they are ordering from Ocado within a decade. How exactly is technology changing how people buy and sell cars?
当我们重新审视我们的目的, what we came out with after many hours in a room of flushing this out was, 我们希望大大简化购车过程. 现在这是一个非常复杂的交易. There's lots of things involved, not least because people often have to take out finance. 他们可能会交换另一辆车. 他们可能想试驾这辆车. 这在纯网络上很难做到. So, there's all sorts of challenges that make it a bit more difficult than buying potatoes online. 但是，我们认为这个概念是有需求的. Consumers do want to do more of the journey up front before they go to a car dealer, for example.
Fundamentally, we're just trying to make as much of that journey digital as possible. Making things easy for the consumer and easier for the retailers, 实际上. 制造商也. To 真的 just try to simplify what is already quite a complicated transaction and bringing more of that online. Lots of the initiatives that we're working on right now are things like making finance easier to get and to sort out online.
你提到了零售商. What advice would you give to retailers that are looking to embrace technology?
是的，当然，去做吧，拥抱科技. We've got about 13,000, or so, car dealers, or retailers, as we call them. Within that community, there is a whole spectrum of capability, if you like. From the 非常 forward-thinking digital dealers themselves, 转向更传统的, 在某些情况下, 非常, 非常小的独立团体. What we try and do is provide software solutions to help all those different segments. 我们发现, retailers that 真的 buy into data-driven digital marketing are the ones that are succeeding. 这些都是做得很好的.
例如，我们提供车辆零售指标. 我们经营一个市场，我们可以这么说, 基于所有这些数据的观察, we can advise on how quickly a particular car might sell, 那批存货需要多少天才能周转. We can advise on what the right price position might be to get a quick sale. 通过优化零售价格, 并尽量减少扭转局面所需的时间, 零售商可以实现利润最大化.
What you want to be doing is getting cars in and selling them quickly. That's 非常 different to, 也许, how a traditional car dealer of 20, 30 years ago might have felt. 他们会受到更多的诱惑去思考, 好吧，我想从这辆车里得到很多东西, 我要在价格上加上平衡。”. Whereas, 真的, we're encouraging people to say to price it for a quick sale.
迷人的. 通过与Auto Trader合作, retailers then get access to the amounts of data that’s available to the business
绝对, 这是我们独特的优势之一, 因为我们有这么大的市场, it's fair to say we could tell you what the market prices are going to be because we operate the market. So it's 非常 difficult for a competitor to do the same, 实际上.
What processes are in place that allow Auto Trader to utilise big data and make decisions with it?
We invested a lot in data tech over the last four to five years. We've seen a huge explosion in technology that goes into our data platform. A lot of the effort exerted has been around supporting our data scientists and data analysts, 让他们有机会, 在某些情况下, 海量的信息. 我们能够观察到消费者的行为. 我们可以看看车辆的广告. We can look at the prices of vehicles 诸如此类的事情.
好吧. So, 展望一下未来, 所有这些变化对该行业意味着什么, 而且是专门针对消费者的?
我们一直在平衡这个双边市场. We want to attract as many consumers to our marketplaces as possible. The way we do that is making sure our retailers are offering the widest possible choice of vehicle. In the last couple of years, we've had quite good success in making inroads into new car. 传统上, 我们是一家公认的二手车公司, but in recent years we're 真的 making a push into new cars 也. 这反映了这样一个事实：消费者, 有时, 你愿意买一辆新车还是一辆二手车. 所以，我们试着让这个选择尽可能的广泛.
第二件事是透明度. Our research shows what consumers want most of all is to know they're not getting ripped off. 他们想知道自己得到了一笔好交易. 因此，我们提供了所谓的价格指标. We'll say whether we think a vehicle is priced fairly or, 也许, 价格略低于市场价, just to provide the consumer with more assurance that what they're potentially about to buy is a fair deal.
A few years ago we made things like valuations of vehicles free to consumers. 这是一个颠覆性的举动. We've done something more recently with vehicle provenance checks. 同样，对消费者免费. So, e非常 car that's on Auto Trader has had a check done on it to make sure it's not stolen, 注销, 或者类似的事情. So, 真的, just bringing in trust and transparency to that marketplace to help consumers with, 不然会怎样呢？, 这是一个令人望而生畏的过程.
零售商是如何发现这些变化的?
这是个好问题. Some have thoroughly embraced it, but some have found it a challenge. 我想大多数人都看得出来, 比如价格指标, most retailers eventually will admit it's the right thing to do. But, clearly that's highlighting that most of your stock is priced above market. That quickly has the effect that people start to rethink their pricing strategies, 我们最终想要的是什么. We don't want to drive consumers into a dealership to haggle on price. We want them to turn up and say "You've already advertised with a fair price. 我很乐意付这笔钱." So, 实际上, 一旦零售商渡过难关, it just reduces the difficulty on both sides of the transaction.
What steps has the organisation taken to find and retain the best tech talent?
这是艰难的. 我认为在这个国家的任何地方都很难. 在全球最大的博彩平台尤其艰难. 最终, that's got to be a good thing because it's attracting lots of potential employees to the area. The reality is there is a skills gap and a demand for technologists. We moved to Manchester about five years ago and its taken a few years to 真的 build up that community awareness and 真的 start to engage with the tech community in Manchester. 从小开始, 在晚上举办活动, 诸如此类的事情, 我们现在的影响范围更广了. A lot of our people will talk at conferences all over the country, all over the world. Our influence and outreach is expanding over time, which, I think, has been helpful. 很多时候，人们, 开发人员, 或者其他任何人申请这个角色或者接近我们, quite often they've been to an event or they've seen us talk somewhere. 所以，从这个意义上说，它真的很有帮助.
Auto Trader do a lot to help plug the skills gap with the work that you do with 数字期货全球最大的博彩平台数字的人才和技能计划. 为什么这对公司很重要?
它只是反映出没有单一的灵丹妙药. We found that the right way to approach is have a broad strategy around early careers. So even though we've had graduate programs for a long time, 最近我们研究了学徒制. 我想这是我们第三年了 全球最大的博彩平台数字软件开发学徒. 事实上，我们已经取得了一些巨大的成功. People have gone through that program and are now with us as software engineers. 这太棒了. 这真是太好了.
最后, 只是在谈论全球最大的博彩平台, how has relocated to Manchester and being a part of the tech community benefited the business?
这是一场变革. I don't think we appreciated it back before we centralised and located around Manchester, the benefit of getting people co-located in a single building. 我从根本上认为它使构建软件变得更好. Being able to collaborate and be face to face with your peers absolutely beats being at the end of a conference call. 这是可以做到的，但要难得多. 然后从后面拿下来, that community feel of having e非常one together in a great environment, 也. 我认为我们从中得到了巨大的好处, massively outpaced what we thought we would potentially get. 所以，它产生了巨大的影响.
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