• by Laurie Sullivan , January 21, 2025

The automotive industry suffers from a data disconnect between critical platforms running their businesses that directly affect sales and profits, according to findings released Tuesday by eLEND Solutions at the National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA), a trade organization representing new car and truck dealerships in the U.S. 

The survey ranked data accessibility as the biggest challenge to improving API integrations between dealership website tools and core platforms such as dealer management system (DMS), customer relationship management (CRM) and financial management systems (FMS).

Pete MacInnis, founder and CEO at eLEND Solutions, found that many dealerships suffer from significant lapses in data between these systems. 

Fifty-six percent of auto dealers surveyed said they encounter information gaps or discrepancies between their CRM, DMS and FMS more than one-quarter of the time, with 47% saying they encounter gaps between 25% and 50% of the time and 9% experiencing it more than 50% of the time.

MacInnis thinks that once auto dealers stop viewing online credit apps and other customer-facing website tools as lead-gen opportunities and begin viewing them as an integral part of the sales process, the silos that exist in the sales and finance process will disappear.

eLEND Solutions fielded the U.S. online survey in November and December of 2024. Results show that better API integrations could improve efficiencies at dealerships by at least 20%.

Some 67% of survey respondents said the quality of API integrations between their website tools and core platforms could improve.

Data accessibility was cited as the top challenge, meaning delayed data synching, and access restrictions across teams.

Data discrepancies such as incomplete data transfer, data-formatting differences, duplicate records, broken or missing integrations and workflows are tied for second.

The survey also revealed credit apps were cited as the number one website third-party tool that 50% of dealers felt needed better integration into their dealership’s processes.

Calculator tools, trade-in tools and the overall digital retailing platform followed.