CARY, N.C. -

Bruce Thompson is an “idea guy.”

And it was one idea about inventory management in the late 1990s that helped spur what would become two decades of dealership software innovations from the Texas entrepreneur and his team.

After getting into automotive on the wholesale side of the industry, Thompson eventually became a consultant for car dealers.

One of those dealers was Mike Beaver of what was then Beaver Chevrolet in Lufkin, Texas.

“I walked on his lot, and I said, ‘Mike, I think your inventory mix is wrong.’ And he challenged me, and he said, ‘Well, how do you know that, Bruce? You just walked on the lot,’” Thompson said in a phone interview.  “The only way I knew to prove it to him otherwise was to dig into his accounting system, his DMS and look at what he had performed with and sold really well.”

So, Thompson said he sorted the data by price bands, makes and models on a spreadsheet, then presented Beaver with a comparison of what vehicles had been doing well for the store in recent years versus what it was stocking at that time.

That comparison had convinced Beaver, so Thompson went to work righting the inventory.

That work helped the store increase profits three-fold, Thompson said, in a short period of time.

Eventually, Thompson took his ideas of inventory management and hired a software company to help him develop the first iteration of American Auto Exchange, also known as AAX. That launched in 2001 and was sold to JM Family Enterprises in 2005.

Since then, Thompson and his team have developed such platforms as LaneLogic, RedBumper, NewCarIQ, Trade-In Concierge and others.

The latest is CarOffer, which launched in August. The company describes it as the retail automotive industry’s first instant wholesale vehicle trade platform. Part of what it aims to help solve is the margin compression dealers are facing.

Throughout his career, problem-solving through software has been Thompson’s M.O.

“From my perspective, when you think about software technology, if you can solve problems for your end user, make their job easier, more efficient and help them make more money, I think that’s where you can capitalize on technology,” Thompson said.

“The thing about the automotive industry — actually, any industry for that matter — you really have to really know it, like the back of your hand,” he said. “Because there are so many intricacies that are entwined that you’ve got to really go down layers.”

Having a pulse on an industry involves getting out and doing what Thompson said he enjoys most about automotive: talking with dealers.

During the interview, he said he had recently visited a dealership, “and it’s just like home to me.”

In talking with dealers about the challenges they are facing, Thompson says the biggest ones are margin compression and profitability. Those are issues that have to be handled, and his company is working on it, he said.  

Thompson says that, “right now, there’s not a lot of solutions that enable them to get out of the margin compression trap. 

“That’s what we’re focused on,” he said. “But for me, just being in the industry and really understanding it, the entrepreneurial hat, I think just naturally comes on, because you just start thinking of ways to correct the problems.

“And we’ve got a team here that’s been in this business for 20 years working together, so I think we have a knack for it,” he said. “And I think it’s God-given ability, to be honest with you, I don’t know that we can take a lot of credit for ideas that we get, other than just collaborating and getting inspiration.”

Speaking of his team, Thompson has a squad that he calls “brilliant.” He leans on them and challenges them to bring ideas to fruition.

The company has roughly 150 employees, many of which are in the tech segment.

“I realized a long time ago (that) I don’t want to be the smartest guy in the room. And so, I’ve got some guys around me that are off-the-charts brilliant with what they do. Being with the team for the last 20 years, it has really worked out well, because I can come up with an idea, I’ll go to a board, I’ll draw that idea out, and we’ll solve a problem, and then my team will take that idea and they’ll enhance it, make it much better than the original idea. 

“We come up with something that’s really outside of the box.”

Essentially, the idea starts with Thompson, he challenges the team, and they “push the envelope.”  

“We’re not a company here that punches a clock. We’re basically all partners,” he said. “And that’s the kind of way I like to look at it. And I couldn’t have done anything without my team, to be quite honest with you, because they can do things in periods of time that are just mind-boggling. And (they’ve) always been able to do that, for the last 17, 18 years.” 

We later caught up with Thompson at Used Car Week in November for an epsiode of the Auto Remarketing Podcast. That episode can be found below.