2012 ProSales 100 Companies' Technology Plans

The number of dealers willing to invest between 0.25% and 0.50% of their annual revenues in technology grew to 49% this year from 43% a year ago, while those willing to invest more than 1% increased to 9% of respondents from 5%. Anecdotal evidence suggests these change refl ect a growing view that technology investments can deliver a competitive advantage. Meanwhile, the number of ProSales 100 members offering online invoicing increased by 15 percentage points from 2010, while the percentage of dealers offering online payment options has doubled since 2009. But online inventory/pricing has shown virtually no gain, perhaps because dealers prefer to keep pricing a topic for face-to-face negotiations. As for customer relationship management systems—one of the hottest topics in IT these days—lots of ProSales 100 members are indifferent to the idea of buying specialized CRM software.