ATLANTA -

Manheim said Thursday it has moved two of its top executives into new roles.

In an effort to further the company’s goal to serve customers’ needs “anytime and anywhere”, Rick Pomeroy, vice president of national client sales support, and Erik Kibler, general sales manager, major dealer, are both now responsible for key organizations that focus on doing just that.

First up, Pomeroy, who will report to Nick Peluso, senior vice president of customer management, is leading the newly-formed National Client Sales Support team that supports Manheim’s National Commercial Account and Major Dealer groups.

The company explained that this team “brings together Manheim’s in-lane and online expertise to support the needs of all the company’s national clients, both commercial and dealer, and to continue to assist with driving the evolution of effective selling solutions.”

Having been with the company since 1986, Pomeroy has held a variety of management positions of increasing responsibility within the finance, operations and digital groups.

And Kibler — who has been with Manheim since 2005, most recently serving as senior director of consulting and analytics with Manheim Consulting — will now lead Manheim’s Major Dealer team and will “work to grow sales efforts, extend financing opportunities and develop deeper integration of the company’s consulting services for Manheim’s key dealer customers,” officials explained.

Kibler will report to Susie Heins, vice president of dealer sales.

Commenting on the changes, Peluso noted, “Manheim is committed to serving customers the way they want to be served, whether they do business with us in-lane or online.

“Having Rick, Erik and their teams focused in these areas is a key part of how we will deliver on this commitment and help customers do business anytime and anywhere,” he added.

Highlighting the Evolving Marketplace

And in other news from the company, Auto Remarketing spoke with Manheim’s Peluso Thursday to highlight some of the businesses’ plans for the year, as well as evolving business strategies.

During the recent Client Advisory Board meeting, Manheim shared some perspective on emerging remarketing and industry trends to attendees from top OEMs and banks.

Peluso described the event as “more than a success,” noting it was one of the best CAB events yet, which is in its 15th year.

And Peluso also noted there were a few topics discussed that seemed to resonate with the company’s institutional sellers attending the event.

“One of the things that we talked about is the evolving marketplace and what does that mean for our institutional partners as we go forward,” Peluso noted.

And one of these topics was what the company described as "multi-platform selling."

“We talked about multi-platform selling. Manheim has a platform called OVE.com, where commercial sellers can list their vehicles, and there are competitive platforms to ours in the market.  What we are starting to see happen and support is our sellers will start listing their vehicles on all those platforms for sale at the same time," he said.

“So cars that would once be listed on one site will now be listed all three or so, and it will be listed for the same price on all three. So now, the focus is on who has the dealer’s eyeballs and what type of service or guarantee do they provide that will keep them coming back to one platform,” the Manheim exec continued.

“We will be looking to have a better relationship with dealers to drive more of their buying habits and behaviors through our platform,” Peluso added, stressing that Manheim will be researching ways to serve dealers through the online marketplace.

Manheim officials went on to note that another reoccurring topic at the CAB event was metrics used to measure vehicle remarketing.

“One of the other things that we focused on is the metrics that used to measure vehicle remarketing. The industry has changed a lot in the last couple years, and it will continue to change, but we are still using the same benchmarks and metrics that they were using 25 years ago,” Peluso explained.

“Is it time to start looking at different ways to measure success? While we don’t have the answers to it yet, we had a working session to challenge people to look at what we should be measuring,” he added.

Peluso offered an example to illustrate his point: “People will ask how many buyers showed up at your auction? But these attendees could just be coming to have lunch. But you could be asking how many people were buying online? How many bids do you have?  Like I said, there are different tools, but the metrics still haven’t changed yet."

He also touched on a recent phenomenon within the auction industry.

Peluso contends that historically, “You brought the car to the auction, but now, it we are starting to see the auction brought to the car.

“We are starting to see vehicles sold remotely, versus always having to come to the location or auction. Dealers are listing cars for sale while they are still on their lot. The dealer groups have trading platforms where they can trade amongst themselves before it goes to a broader auction base. You know the shortage of cars the last couple of years has required buyers to do things a little differently,” Peluso explained.

“Do you really need to carry the burden of transportation costs to move it to a location, if we can bring the auction to the car?” he asked.

Also during the event, attendees got to try out some of Manheim’s latest digital tools during the company’s first ever product fair.

During the fair, customers could “play” with Manheim’s latest digital and in-lane product innovations.

Furthermore, while attendees were testing out the new products, the company’s product managers were on hand to answer any questions.

“One of the things we spent a lot of the time talking about is Simulcast Everywhere, which debuted at the NADA Convention this year,” Peluso stated.

“It allows us to use technology to have sales where cars don’t have to be at auction. Institutional sellers are seeing an opportunity for their off-lease volumes because they now have the opportunity to do these sales when the car is still at the dealership,” he added.

The company also had technology for dealers on display.

“We showed them (attendees) technology helping the dealer, scanning VINs, condition reports, etc. … tools that some of our dealers use, such as the Manheim app.

“The product fair was broader than just technology for selling, we had a lot of booths about how we are doing marketing and social media. The product fair was a way of showcasing and talking to them about the things we have in development,” Peluso concluded.

To read more about the recent CAB event, see the Auto Remarketing story here.