Justin Holman (CEO) was delighted to present on the Lets Tech stage at AAPEX 2018. The topic of his presentation was “Data Science & Technology for demand forecasting in the Aftermarket”.
Watch the 1 min 44 second summary below featured on AAPEX TV.
https://aapextv.com/list/lg1IwOCf/video/ctKqpal1/lets-tech-sessions-at-aapex-18
For more information or to arrange a demo please contact Shawn Wills, (303) 956 2848, shawn.wills@aftermarketanalytics.com
Take a look at the great article and interview by Brian Albright for searchautoparts.com and Aftermarket Business World.
Automotive sector expands investment in inventory analytics
With the number of SKUs expanding and more and more companies moving to an omnichannel model for parts sales, inventory planning and demand forecasting in the aftermarket has become increasingly complex. Companies are turning to advanced analytics tools to help make more accurate and faster inventory decisions. IndustryARC predicts that automotive data analytics market will reach $3.81 billion by 2023, with a compound annual growth rate of 15.4 percent. That growth will be fueled, in part, by the increasing amount of data available from autonomous and connected vehicles or telematics systems.
In my last post we looked at the population of Honda Accords in New York. We calculated a few descriptive statistics and examined a few data distributions. This helped us get to know the Honda Accord population in New York but there’s a lot more we can do to understand this potential population of aftermarket part customers.
We now know the size of the Accord population but what about the rate of Accord ownership? Where are Accords popular or unpopular? Of course there are more Accords in the New York City metropolitan area where there are millions of people. But where do people own Accords at higher or lower rates? And how do these ownership rates compare with similar vehicles? This may help us avoid having too many or too few parts on the shelf in certain locations.
This simple question is at the core of what VIO data are all about.
Imagine the entrepreneur who has invented an innovative aftermarket replacement part. The part might fit dozens of different models but, for the sake of a simple illustration, let’s say it only fits the Honda Accord. So, finding out the vehicle population is the same as finding out the size of the market for this new part. And this is the denominator in the equation to calculate market share. Pretty important number, explaining why companies are willing to spend money on VIO.
According to data we downloaded and processed from data.ny.gov, the answer to the question is there are approximately 300,000 Honda Accords in New York state.
Hey, why not give the exact number? Because all VIO data are estimates.
Even if we retrieve the data today, this minute, it would be just a static snapshot of registration records. New vehicle sales in the past month won’t show up. Recently purchased vehicles registered in a neighboring state won’t show up. Recently scrapped vehicles will still be counted. Occasionally people drive to another state and need a repair. Heck, some people register their vehicle in another state…for tax reasons or whatever. Sometimes vehicle registrations are clustered in a corporate or government office location even though the vehicles themselves are spread around the state or the country. It doesn’t matter how hard you try, the best count you can get is an estimate. If you’re thinking you’ll gain significant advantage from obtaining higher levels of precision you may be missing the mathematical forest for the trees.
In a recent article the Economist declared that Data has surpassed Oil as the world’s most valuable commodity. Ironically, this value transition is also occurring in the automotive industry where oil still fuels the cars on the road but key data, such as vehicles in operation (VIO), now fuel decisions faced by automotive parts suppliers, distributors and retailers who are increasingly competing on analytics and supply chain efficiency.
For those not familiar, VIO is the name used to describe the census of vehicle ownership registrations which include details such as year, make, model and other attributes. Most large companies in the $300B+ Automotive Aftermarket market license these data in one of two flavors, “Experian” or “Polk”. I don’t know who is winning the market share battle between the two but I do know the Aftermarket is paying a hefty premium due to inadequate competition. Buyers can choose the geographic unit of reporting (national, state, county, ZIP, census tract or perhaps even block group) with prices going up with each increase in geographic resolution. I don’t have details on pricing but, from what I can gather, you’ll pay around $20-30k for County level, maybe $40-50k for ZIP and possibly over $100k for data at census tract or block group level. In exchange for this hefty price tag you get a pile of DVDs or a monster CSV file to download, and not much more.
Originally, R.L. Polk & Company had, essentially, a monopoly on the VIO data licensing business and they used their profit margins intelligently, acquiring Carfax in 1999. Then, around 10 years ago Experian (yes, the same Experian who recently exposed the private data of 123 million American consumers) entered the market. I assume this duopoly improved the competitive landscape a bit for VIO buyers but I think there’s still plenty of room on the field. In 2013, IHS-Markit acquired R.L. Polk & Co for the tidy sum of $1.4 Billion. Having been through a couple of acquisitions myself I suspect some of the Polk brain trust has cashed-in most or all of their Earnout and moved on, either literally or figuratively.
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