Manheim has named Brad Burns as associate vice president of vehicle information, saying that the move takes place as digital wholesale continues as a primary source for buying and selling vehicles.

The move comes amid 81% of Manheim’s 2020 sales going to digital buyers.

Burns has been with Manheim for 17 years, and he has extensive client-facing experience, according to the company.

Burns will play a key role in leading the transformation of Manheim’s vehicle information. He will help boost client confidence across all Manheim Digital Marketplace platforms.

“We are on the cusp of tremendous change in wholesale that will help grow client confidence in transacting digitally and improve the way our industry does business,” senior vice president of Manheim Digital Solutions Zach Hallowell said in a news release.

Hallowell continued, “But to help clients be comfortable online, we have to be highly consistent about what information we collect, how we collect it and how we share that information. Brad’s close work with our clients over the years gives him the unique perspective needed to take Manheim’s Vehicle Information to the next level.”

For most of his nearly two-decade-long career, Burns has worked closely with clients across several Manheim operating locations.

His Manheim career began in 2003, when he served as a sales representative at what is now Manheim Central Florida. Throughout Florida, he served in several client-facing roles before his promotion to assistant general manager at Manheim St. Pete in 2014. He became general manager in 2017.

He led a Manheim location that specializes in under-$5,000 cars, helping him fully understand what the broader spectrum of clients needs when buying digitally.

Burns said that when Manheim went all digital last year, the under-$5K client base in particular experienced a bigger challenge.

Burns’ team members put themselves in the clients’ shoes, working closely with them to find out what they needed to know to buy cars online confidently and comfortably.

“We went from some of our clients choosing to conduct business digitally to everyone having to,” Burns said.

“And now we want people to want to,” Burns said.

Burns went on to say his team has listening intently to clients of all sizes, learning what they struggle with the most in the area of buying online. The team is taking big steps to give those clients the information they need and the way they need it, Burns said.  

Generating a greater level of consistency in the information Manheim collects and how it displays that information is Burns’ first priority.

That work will begin with improving Manheim’s current tools, followed by using new technologies. Those include technology developed in partnership with newly acquired Fyusion and others currently in the pilot program stage.  

Manheim said that in the vehicle information space, it created standard damage descriptions and AutoGrade.

Both of those brought a new level of consistency to wholesale inspections, Manheim said.

The company flipped the switch to all-digital sales in March, making enhancements to its vehicle information. That included more than doubling the number of images in condition reports.

Forming a client advisory panel focused on condition reports was another move, along with starting a condition report quality program with strong training of inspectors and increased auditing of condition reports and vehicles.

Manheim said the future of vehicle information will involve a combination of the top technologies with the most comprehensive data to produce detailed, objective and intelligent information about the complete condition of a vehicle. That information will be in the areas of cosmetic, safety, structural, and mechanical.

The company said that at several locations, it is currently piloting undercarriage imaging.

The goal of the pilot program is to have the largest inside-the-gate deployment of undercarriage imaging, which it describes as crucial technology.

Manheim is also continuing to roll out capabilities that deliver higher resolution imaging, as well as capturing more mechanical and safety data.

The goal of those capabilities is to create the best and most consistent condition reports so dealers feel the greatest confidence in buying digitally.