BOSTON -

When you talk with Janet Barnard, the newly named president of Manheim North America, it’s clear that customer feedback, particularly as it relates to technology and innovation that improves the business process, is of great importance.

And in a conversation with Auto Remarketing this fall, she also described how Manheim’s teamwork with fellow Cox Automotive companies has helped facilitate that approach from an operations standpoint. Not only that, it has helped Manheim find opportunities when tackling operational challengs.

Barnard — who was named president of Manheim North America on Thursday after serving several years as executive vice president and chief operating officer — talked with Auto Remarketing at the National Auto Auction Association Convention earlier this year in Boston.

One example of the cross-division teamwork was a she pointed to was the Enhanced Vehicle Imaging Suite from Manheim, which has continued to show growth.

“We got that out the door as quickly as we did because we partnered with HomeNet, which is a Cox Automotive company,” Barnard said. “They provided all the technology and hardware so that we could get that out to the market more quickly rather than having to start from scratch. And we’re finding a number of ways to partner with them on the vehicle merchandising front, because that’s their business. That’s what their good at.”

Barnard would go on to discuss more Manheim’s work with NextGear Capital, and what Barnard called its “pretty robust centralized title management system.”

Manheim has partnered with NextGear “to, basically, build on to their existing system to be able to scale and provide centralized title management for the customers that want that. And, frankly, that doesn’t have to be limited to just the cars they buy and sell at auction. Once this is in place, we could manage any given company’s entire title business if they wanted us to do that." 

She added: “In many of these examples, we’re solving some operational challenges that we have anyway and as we do that, we’re thinking about how that can become a product for our customer. So, we sort of test it out internally first to say, ‘Is this easier, faster? Does the transaction happen more quickly? Can we do more transactions?’ And if it works, we can literally turn the screen around, show it to a customer, and say, ‘Here’s maybe a self-service tool for you, that’s going to add value to your business.’”

That’s the mindset Barnard says Manheim has put toward operational challenges: If you’re going to invest to solve the problem, anyway, see if there’s an opportunity to grow or improve your business.

“So, not just time- and expense-savings," she said, "but also revenue generating.”