During the fifth annual HERstory event held on International Women’s Day in March, Manheim president Grace Huang shared a few key messages during the event, which is put on by Cox Enterprises in recognition of Women’s History Month.

One of those messages she spoke to, in addition to other insights, is found on a rock she shares with everyone on her team.

“Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes,” Huang said.

“It’s all about taking risks. Especially where we sit today in the industry,” she said in a phone interview this March while she was at the Conference of Automotive Remarketing. 

“We have to take some risks in the industry. Because there is a lot of money coming in from Silicon Valley into the transportation space in general and even in our space in wholesale remarketing. We as an industry, we as a company, we have to take some risks.

“And sometimes we have to make that bold decision and that bold move, such as Manheim Express, even when internally people can say, ‘Well if you start Manheim Express, you’ll be cannibalizing our lanes,’” she said. “We could be, right? But that’s not going to stop progress, because if it’s not us, then it’s going to be somebody else.”

During the phone interview, Huang spoke to some of the bold, big moves being made at Manheim, many of which have gained momentum in the months since the conversation.

Part of a broad digital strategy

For example, Manheim Express, which Huang said was the biggest project the company was working on at the time.

“We just see this as a way for our dealers to leverage our marketplace faster. It gives our dealers a chance to sell their cars off of their lot, obviously cutting days to sell potentially,” Huang said of the digital wholesale app. “But still leveraging the audience, the eyeballs that we have built over the last 70 years at Manheim.”

Huang sees Manheim Express as a “win-win-win” and is excited about where it can go and it being “the new way of how the auction will look in the future,” she said.

“And it’s part of our broader, overall digital strategy. So, in the future, we believe while there still are cars that come to the lane and cars that are on our lots, all the transactions will be done digitally,” Huang said.

Similar to Amazon, “everything will be transacted on this platform, but the cars are still sitting physically. And the cars are still there, so for dealers who want to come see the cars, they’re still at our lot,” Huang said. “But now we have a really viable auction for dealers to sell cars without necessarily sending them to the location.”

Since that interview, Manheim has continued to bulk up the app.

In late July, Manheim rolled out two upgrades to Manheim Express to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the digital wholesale app. It said Manheim Express would include a condition report grade feature on all cars listed by concierges, while also giving users the ability to request a concierge through the app.

In early September, the company announced that buying dealers can tap into vehicle recommendations through the app that are based on artificial intelligence. Additionally, buying dealers were given the capability of use the Manheim Express app to manage offers directly.

During the March interview, Huang also touched on the needs of commercial consignors, noting they’re “very similar” to those of dealers in the wholesale market.

“It’s all about getting that car sold faster. Over the years, our industry has done a good job of selling upstream and cars going upstream,” she said.

But the question now is, “how do we get it even faster than upstream?” Huang said.

“How do we really get those cars, again, sold to the right person as soon as it’s grounded — and in a way that’s beneficial both to the commercial consignor as well as the dealers, when you think about dealer lots, dealers’ space?” she said.

Manheim Express, she points out, is another avenue that consignors can sell vehicles quickly once they know they’re coming back.

But as Huang would point out, whether cars are being sold physically or digitally at the company, it’s all part of the same Manheim Marketplace.

“Even though there’s a small, startup team working within the marketplace for Manheim Express, they’re completely connected with our general managers and our physical locations,” Huang said.

“Everybody sees this as a channel for our dealers, our consignors to be able to sell cars more efficiently and faster. And that’s all everybody wants,” she said. “What’s so great about Manheim Express is that we’ve really rallied all of our field locations to be part of this journey, as we transform this marketplace from a pure physical (environment) into physical and digital.”

Promoting safety

According to the Manheim Marketplace website, the digital channels at Manheim include several sales avenues, like Simulcast, Manheim Express, OVE and others.

A big part of these digital ventures has centered on promoting safety.

“One of the biggest pieces, priority-wise, especially as we move more and more digital, and our impetus for moving more digital is around safety. It’s obviously been a huge topic here at CAR; and it continues to be a huge focus and priority for Manheim,” Huang said. “And a lot of the push we have around digital is that we now have made the investments; we now have the technology; we now have the eyeballs on Simulcast, where we can stop moving cars.

“At the very minimum, we can stop moving them through the lanes. It’s just been a huge push for us, and I know for the industry as a whole.”

In fact, this spring, Manheim Tucson became Manheim’s first auction to incorporate a 100% digital format, utilizing a four-lane setup where cars are parked in designated spots and sold to buyers both physically present at the facility and online. An auctioneer has them up for sale digitally through oversized monitors that include enhanced images, barcode price scanning and condition report info.

Buyers and sellers can participate in person at the auction or online through Manheim Simulcast. While Manheim Tucson is 100% digital, the company has over 100 digital-only lanes throughout its other physical auction facilities.

“We’re going to continue on this journey,” Huang said in another interview this August, adding that not moving the cars can reduce the chance for an accident at the auction.

“It’s all about this culture of safety that we’re trying to set, not just for our employees, but for all our visitors and all of our clients that come to our location every day,” Huang said of the investment in digital. “So, this is a really important initiative, and one that we’ll continue to talk about as an industry as we continue to invest in digital tools to make buying online easier and easier for our buyers.”

As part of that, Grace said in the August interview, Manheim will put an emphasis on “more objective” condition reports, which can help drive confidence in online buying.

“We actually started an initiative several years ago, probably three years ago to really make a huge push on our dealer side, because we felt that they were missing out on potential online buyers by not having condition reports,” Huang said.

“All of our general managers, all of our sales team have been involved to continue that practice of really talking to each dealer about their inventory and why it makes sense for them,” Huang said.

“We’ll ask them to try it and see, and most of the time they see pretty immediate results just from the Simulcast numbers. They’ll see that number jump,” she said. “We all know in the auction business, the more people you have — whether on Simulcast or in the lane — bidding, it’s only a good thing for the seller.”

Takeaways beyond auto

When auction leaders talk to trade publications, the conversation often focuses on business strategy or wholesale automotive-specific trends. But certainly, leadership in this industry has applications beyond automotive.

Huang’s address at the HERstory event speaks to that.

Another message she shared during her presentation: “Diversity matters.”

And that is a challenge the industry faces.

“And I always add this because when people think of diversity, they immediately think in gender and race and age and things like that. Things you can see,” Huang said in the March interview. “But just as important to me is diversity of thought.”

As an example, she told the story of a recent hire she had made.

“I had two very, very qualified candidates. They both happened to be women. But two very, very qualified candidates. And I picked the candidate who was different than me. And different than most of the team, because we wanted to balance out the different types of diversity of thought,” Huang said.

“We invest a lot of money at Cox in terms of team development and understanding how people think, how people act in different modes. And so, we have a language that we use at Cox. So, immediately when I interviewed her, I knew she was very different than me,” she said. “And that’s why I hired her.”

Another bit of wisdom she shared is to remember to have fun, even with changes in the industry – i.e., the aforementioned digital movement — can be challenging.  Innovation can be difficult.

“We come to work because we’re passionate about what we do, and we’re excited about what we do,” Huang said. “But change is still hard, so let’s make it fun along the journey.”