EDITOR’S NOTE: This story is part of the May edition of Auto Remarketing, which will focus entirely on a new special feature: Who to Watch.

This special feature will recognize auto industry executives and companies — selected by Cherokee Media Group’s senior editors — who are significantly shaping the future of the used-car industry. This is not an awards issue, but rather a collection of special features on leading companies and executives from retail, remarketing, auto finance, loss mitigation, and investor segments of the industry.

Vijeta Kadarmandalgi said she’s done “a little bit of everything” while being a part of RouteOne for the past 11 years. Currently, Kadarmandalgi is the senior manager of customer solutions.

“It’s kind of like, at least for me, the perfect blend of all the worlds,” Kadarmandalgi said during a conversation at this year’s Auto Intel Summit when she gained more perspectives about how auto financing and retailing are changing, pushed in part by technology.

“As someone who’s worked mostly in the technology space, the most exciting part for me has been seeing how technology has evolved and gotten more ingratiated into the automotive retailing space,” Kadarmandalgi said. “Historically, this has been an industry that’s played out within the dealers, but consumers are now looking to be able to do way more online from home, so it’s been exciting to see how the technology has evolved to support that change in consumers’ purchasing preferences.

“I’ve been at RouteOne for a little over 11 years, and most of that has been on the technology side, and I’ve built products that support both the in-store experiences and online shopping experiences, and it’s been very exciting to see how that technology that we built is now getting ingratiated into the market,” she continued.

Kadarmandalgi mentioned that she’s not only working closely with shops that cater to dealership needs.

“Our customer solutions team, we work with dealer service providers, and that can be anyone from your true DMS all the way through to fintechs. We work with them to understand what they’re trying to do, what experience they’re trying to build, and we come up with a custom solution that’s comprised of either our RouteOne on-demand APIs or other products to help power their experience with RouteOne,” she said.

How those processes unfold has changed significantly since Kadarmandalgi has been with RouteOne because her tenure includes the pandemic. But what Kadarmandalgi said has been a hallmark of RouteOne’s culture hasn’t changed.

“My team and RouteOne broadly are very team-oriented,” Kadarmandalgi said “We have a strong focus on collaboration and what we lovingly call hallway chats in building that corporate culture.

“In the last five or so years, having been much more in this virtual hybrid workspace, I think it’s fair to say RouteOne is still pretty collaborative,” she continued. “For my team specifically, we’ve been really intentional in having weekly team check-ins where we can talk about work, we can share life stories, and we’ve even played virtual games to really keep that connected feeling between the team members. Though I will acknowledge it might be a little bit easier for us as RouteOne right now because we’re still fully remote.”

While Kadarmandalgi works from Atlanta and RouteOne is headquartered in Farmington Hills, Mich., she makes trip north for a variety of activities.

“I’m a part of our Women in Leadership group,” Kadarmandalgi said. “As part of that, we’ve done everything from after-work happy hours to even volunteering at events.”

Kadarmandalgi explained how she’s looking to be one of the leaders who helps companies like RouteOne navigate the current automotive landscape.

“I think it’s a really interesting period of transition in our automotive financing space right now. There are multiple different buyer behavior preferences that a dealer needs to manage, all while trying to keep a consistent process for themselves in-store. Some consumers want to go as farther in the sales funnel online and alleviate that time in-store,” Kadarmandalgi said

“Some are looking to do all of it online, while others still prefer a more traditional in-store experience. Omni-channel is very real and making sure that we keep a consistent consumer experience and we don’t lose their progress as they transition from these channels going from online to in-store is extremely important. It sounds real straightforward to say, let’s just build a series of web services to power it, but each component is way more complicated than they might appear at face value,” she continued.

“I think we have some time before everyone’s doing a fully remote sale, but I’m really excited to see how that journey settles for the consumer and help build RouteOne’s products to power that,” Kadarmandalgi went on to say.

And since she’s already “done a little bit of everything,” Kadarmandalgi is excited for what her future at RouteOne and being in automotive could be like.

“I’ve seen a tremendous amount of change in this industry. At the inception of RouteOne, we were trying to convince dealers to stop faxing credit applications and documents to lenders. And now, some 20-plus years later, multiple finance sources are econtracting upwards of 80-90% of their contracts electronically,” Kadarmandalgi said. “And then over the last handful of years, especially with this pandemic, we’ve seen that further shift of consumers wanting to do more online and at home.

“As the pace of change is accelerating in this industry, I’m really excited to be a part of building out RouteOne’s next generation of products, whether it’s an expansion of our on-demand APIs or any of our other products, so we can continue to push the industry forward while still making sure that dealers feel connected to the sales process. Because I think that’s going to be the key to make sure they still feel like they’re in control of their sales process,” Kadarmandalgi went on to say.