There are 20 groups for all manner of car dealers – franchises, independents, buy-here pay-here, big dealers, small dealers, fixed ops and more.

Now there’s a 20 group for vendors.

Vendor 20 Group (V20), which launched with its inaugural meeting Oct. 16 in Las Vegas, bills itself as the auto industry’s first 20 group “dedicated to customer-focused vendor leadership.”

In a news release, V20 said the group began with of an idea by Brent Williams, founder and former CEO of SnapCell, to use the dealer 20 group model to create a vendor version that could improve support of retail automotive customers.

He discussed the concept with Reunion Marketing founder and CEO Dave Spannhake and Kain Automotive founder and president David Kain during a Busch Gardens roller coaster, and they spent the next five months recruiting industry leaders to become founding members.

Companies attending the initial meeting included ActivEngage, Automotive Marketing Gurus, Certified Solutionaries/Car Guy Coffee, Clarivoy, Cognition, DealerOMG, FourEyes, Orbee, Presidio Technology Partners, Real Time Feedback, Reunion Marketing, RevDoJo, Sanford Marketing Group, Silverback Advertising, STELLA Automotive AI, TradePending and Volie.

At the meeting, V20 elected an executive committee led by chairperson Dave Lemmon of DealerOMG and including Lou Ramirez of Certified Solutionaries/Car Guy Coffee, Kyle Disher of RevDoJo and group moderator David Kain, with Williams and Spannhake in advisory roles.

The group set its vision to discuss and deliver the best means for industry vendors to hear the needs of dealerships, address industry challenges and support retail automotive customers, and agreed to collaborate on best practices and share findings with the industry.

“This project took just five months from concept to launch,” Spannhake said. “Twenty of the industry’s best companies met and proved they will be able to share concrete plans to best serve the industry in a first-of-its-kind collaborative environment.”