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Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

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Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#241

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

lainga wrote: post #135
tmpz22 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enterprise vendors have gotten better at locking in customers on multi-year contracts which takes away some of the biggest upside to chipping away at the market. Often a challenger will come in and snag a few smaller deals but the Monopoly has a plethora of options to swat it away - rev up their larger more experienced product team to compete, lobby for regulation, poach from the challenger, acquire the challenger, t…

I read a particularly disgusting book called "Competitive Strategy" by Michael E. Porter, that plainly explains how and when to carry out each of the monopoly-preserving actions you have listed

From what (little) I know, Porter's generally considered to be the expert on Strategy. What did you find disgusting about the book?

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#242

Post by Wingman4l7 »

josefresco wrote: post #168
michaelt wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's assume you're only selling what's on the lot, and you're not running some complex network operation where you care about other dealerships' stock. Googling tells me the average car salesman sells 8-10 cars per month. Maybe more for a 'high volume' dealership but certainly less than 1 car per day. I would think the paperwork to sell a single car would take substantially less than 8 hours for an experienced worke…

My last car purchase took 14 hours total. 2 separate days, was buying new, no trade-in. I tracked my time because it was a work week! Despite telling them after the first day to "have everything ready" for my second visit, I still spent the majority of the day inside the dealership, twiddling my thumbs.

It's a major tactic of car salesmen to delay the selling process repeatedly; it physically and mentally wears down the customer and they are more likely to accept aspects of a deal they don't like, to get it over with and completed.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#243

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

josefresco wrote: post #5

For those looking for close coverage of this issue, "GuyDealership" is a good source. https://x.com/GuyDealership https://www.dealershipguy.com *not affiliated

He was actually the first place I heard about this.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#244

Post by catlikesshrimp »

lolinder wrote: post #214

I'm reminded of the opening line of the second Mistborn novel: > I write these words in steel, for anything not set in metal cannot be trusted. The digital world feels increasingly dangerous and ephemeral. If I have something written with ink on paper I have certain guarantees: I know that it's accessible even if the power is completely out. I know that it won't randomly get deleted if my hard drive suddenly dies. I…

As stated before, convenience is a tradeoff with security.

verbal is less secure than digital, which is less secure than paper, which is less secure than clay, etc.

IMO Every important document must be first written and then scanned (or digitized) That includes medical records, sales receipts.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#245

Post by HeyLaughingBoy »

michaelt wrote: post #174
bee_rider wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The paperwork to do one transaction might not be too bad, but keeping all the inventory on pencil and paper seems like a pain.

It'd be a pain at the multi-dealership-network level, sure. But an individual dealership has what, 50 cars in stock? That seems easily manageable to me. I'm old enough that I've seen far larger operations running on paper. Of course, the days of paper-based paperwork did require businesses to employ diligent and numerate clerks, and to have filing cabinets, manual calculators, photocopiers, whiteout, and suchlike. I…

> 50 cars in stock?

That would be a very small dealership around here, even in the suburbs. 50 cars on the lot was the amount I was seeing during the height of the pandemic supply chain problems and I was amazed at how empty the lots looked.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#246

Post by 0x0000000 »

nsxwolf wrote: post #208

I haven't bought a new car in 8 years. Do they still do that thing with the pen and paper where they write down a bunch of numbers while crossing other numbers out randomly for like 10 minutes?

The four square sheet? Yes they still do it because it's how they manipulate buyers. It's not random, it's very intentional.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#247

Post by nilamo »

mistrial9 wrote: post #173
MangoCoffee wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why didn't Silicon Valley try to disrupt this market?

they did - see Tesla

How much of a disruption was that? Teslas still can't be sold everywhere (such as anywhere in Michigan)...

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#248

Post by nilamo »

bee_rider wrote: post #71
SoftTalker wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow sounds awful for them. They might have to get up from their desks.

They might have hundreds of cars and not every feature is immediately visible.

Dang it's a shame there's no list of features easily found on the windows or something.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#249

Post by seattle_spring »

nsxwolf wrote: post #208

I haven't bought a new car in 8 years. Do they still do that thing with the pen and paper where they write down a bunch of numbers while crossing other numbers out randomly for like 10 minutes?

Yes, all sorts of nonsense like that still happens.

Re: Car dealerships revert to pens and paper after cyberattacks on software provider

#250

Post by lainga »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #241
lainga wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read a particularly disgusting book called "Competitive Strategy" by Michael E. Porter, that plainly explains how and when to carry out each of the monopoly-preserving actions you have listed

From what (little) I know, Porter's generally considered to be the expert on Strategy. What did you find disgusting about the book?

I guess we are coming from different worldviews. These were IIRC collectively referred to as "retaliation" by the incumbent firm and none of them sat very well with me as conducive to innovation.

- lobby for regulation

- poach from the challenger

- tank prices in the one area the challenger has traction

I believe Porter also mentioned trying to secure vendor lock-in.

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