McLEAN, Va. -

Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail — an information technology organization aimed at bringing together the global retail automotive industry — began a new initiative with several manufacturers including Ford, General Motors, Nissan and Volkswagen, along with dealer system providers.

The goal is to streamline and simplify the daily transfer of business information among dealers’ DSP solutions and the manufacturers.

Officials said the new data transfer process spearheaded by Volkswagen of America seeks to create open technology standards that could facilitate increased operational efficiencies for dealers, manufacturers and DSP vendors. They indicated the new solution will combine a secure data transfer process with a superset of data content representing a culmination of a day's business activity for retailers.

STAR noted the description of the business information would be comprehensive, supporting the business needs of the industry's manufacturers and their retailers.

“Ours is a very competitive industry that challenges us to combine innovation with increased efficiencies so we can constantly improve our recurring business processes. The STAR project will leverage existing open standards that members have used for years, enhance the standards, and then combine them to achieve a new business solution for our industry,” said Dick Malaise of Advent Resources, a dealership solution provider.

The overarching goal of this initiative is to enhance the customer experience at the dealer-level while ensuring data is securely and efficiently transferred in a standardized method between OEMs, dealers, and DSPs.

Last October, representatives of STAR’s member organizations gathered in Lisle, Ill,. at the Navistar headquarters to discuss the data project as well as the changing needs of the automotive industry as they relate to data and technology standards.

The next membership meeting will be occurring next month during the National Automobile Dealers Association Convention & Expo in Orlando, Fla.