Auto Town, a specialist in CRM software for auto dealerships, has announced that experienced executives have recently joined its management team. Chief among these are Kurt Olnhausen, Auto Town’s president/CEO and Kusal Swarnaker, its VP of Products, both of whom came from Siebel Systems, a vendor of CRM software. Olnhausen held the position of general manager-Automotive at Siebel and Swarnaker was a group manager. Also on board are Dan Grumley, formerly of Market Scan Information Systems and Richard Sugerman from Loquendo, Inc., a subsidiary of Telecom Italia.
“Some questioned my wisdom in leaving a CRM giant like Siebel, to run Auto Town,” states Olnhausen, “but the clear trend in the field is towards vertical or industry-specific applications such as Auto Town’s DealerTrak. Automotive is increasingly focused on customer satisfaction and CRM is at the heart of that. We had manufacturer and consolidator interest from the outset, but lately inquiries are coming on a much broader level.”
Dan Grumley, the VP sales and marketing, was a sales leader with Wells Fargo’s Auto Finance Division, generating over $105 million in lease sales. He is now charged with hiring, training and deploying a national sales team at Auto Town. Grumley shouldered similar responsibilities in his last position as VP sales (Western Division) at Market Scan Information Systems, another automotive software vendor. There he assembled a team which most recently sold over $24 million in contracts.
“DealerTrak adapts to the way retailers sell cars, while significantly reducing the time it takes to work the customer through the sales process,” observes Grumley. “Not only will a dealership sell more cars with fewer salespeople, but it builds a powerful CRM database that reduces vulnerability to sales force defection.”
Kusal Swarnaker, now Auto Town’s VP products, put together the team which developed Siebel’s CRM solution for automotive dealers. Accordingly, he was quick to recognize advantages in the Auto Town product.
“No matter how technically sophisticated you are, a major barrier to CRM is buy-in from the users. Auto Town’s DealerTrak adapts to what is done at the store. It isn’t an add-on. When you look at the variety of auto dealerships out there, this is a major advantage that no one else has.”
As VP of products, Swarnaker will be responsible for product strategy and engineering as well as hosting and deployment of the software. He will oversee product enhancements already planned as well as monitoring customer feedback for future innovations.
Richard Sugerman, as chief financial officer, brings more than twenty-five years of financial experience to Auto Town, including the last six years with enterprise software development companies. He has been instrumental in securing over $40 million in venture capital over the last three years. His prior experience also includes successful mergers, acquisitions and an IPO.
Sugerman’s viewpoint, though financial rather than technical, is equally optimistic. “Auto Town is far beyond the start-up phase and is thriving in a market that has put a lot of software companies under. Cut-backs are not the concern here. Our attention is strictly on assuring an infrastructure for growth.”
About Auto Town
Auto Town was founded in 1996 near Silicon Valley in the San Francisco Bay area. Its applications are delivered from an ASP facility co-hosted by IBM in San Jose, CA. Products are currently deployed in 21 states.
With DealerTrak, Auto Town created the first integrated customer relationship management (CRM) software specific to auto dealerships. DealerTrak integrates all of a dealership's existing sales systems and legacy databases.
According to the company, sales personnel use Dealer DealerTrak to access electronic worksheets, credit applications, and trade appraisals as well as to generate daily work plans, follow-up letters, and emails. Managers use DealerTrak to monitor sales activity, create custom reports, and selectively market to their customer and prospect databases. DealerTrak coordinates in an "open" framework with more than 200 strategic integrations (NADA, Kelley Blue Book, Black Book, CarPoint.com, etc.) to speed dealership operations.
Auto Town product information can be accessed online at www.AutoTown.com or by phone at 877-877-8696.
