Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) and Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) have joined hands with Google to lead industry's Digital Transformation. The partnership is aiming to train over 1 lakh employees across 20,000 dealerships in a bid to digitalise dealerships across the country. Google India under its "Grow with Google" initiative will be conducting training program via a series of webinars on Digital Marketing, Hyper Local Marketing, and Full Funnel Strategy on Google India's YouTube channel and other online platforms.
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FADA and ASDC are aiming to digitalize dealerships across India.
Talking about the webinars, Vinkesh Gulati, President, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA), said "With the advent of technology and new channels of communication, the classical approach to marketing products and services at the local level has undergone a paradigm change. Gone are the age-old practices of relying on inserts, banners, and small print ads to gain exposure. Today, geo-location targeting, hyperlocal marketing and other sharply defined digital marketing techniques have revolutionized the advertising industry. The digital movement by the dealers' community reaffirms FADA's strong commitment to retain the dynamism of dealer business in the automobile ecosystem and also assure its participation in Government's Digital India Movement in the post-COVID world. The Google-ASDC-FADA webinars are hence aimed to prepare Dealer Principals and their teams to stay ahead in the game in times to come."
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More employees will be trained in the second phase.
Commenting on the initiative, Nikhil Bansal, Head of Automotive, Google India, said "Over the years, the window to influence purchase decisions through offline efforts has become smaller. The average number of visits to dealerships in India fell by 50% over the last three years from 2016 to 2019. And now, COVID-19 has made consumers further reluctant to visit car dealerships, and as a result, walk-ins are even fewer. To aid business recovery, auto players are encouraged to take their dealerships to customers, online. We have been working with leading auto OEMs to help them digitise their dealership networks, and with this initiative, we are now bringing our learning and support to handhold the larger auto dealer ecosystem to go digital in collaboration with ASDC and FADA. We are really excited to join hands with the industry in this first-of-its-kind initiative to help the dealer fraternity and support them in this necessary transition."
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The practice will also help interacting with customers in this pandemic situation.
The focus of the program is on empowering dealerships to adopt digital tools and platforms in a bid to engage with customers. In its second phase, the program also aims to train frontline sales and marketing executives through a series of vernacular executional videos. This will be followed by an online assessment and certification by Google India, ASDC and FADA.
