Consultants CDK Global have prepared crisis management guidelines for automotive retailers.
The firm has drawn on its experience, working with retail clients in both Texas and Florida, where severe weather events have threatened continuity of businesses. In these instances CDK’s partners were able to access the remotely-hosted DMS despite comprehensive damage to the dealership and its IT systems.
David Green, UK Region Vice President, CDK Global, said: “We work with retailers all over the world to ensure their businesses are prepared for any crisis and can recover quickly after natural disasters or other business-critical situations. Despite ongoing dialogue regarding the importance of investing in secure and robust systems, many retailers have been caught-out, so now we’re restating the value of preparation as part a strategic crisis management plan.”
At the forefront of the firm’s recommendations is the use of a cloud-hosted dealer management system (DMS). This ensures data is automatically backed-up and separates the physical location of a retailer and its data. It allows dealers to benefit from guaranteed ‘up-time’, back-up generators, disaster-recovery pairing of hosted services in multiple locations, and the ability to access the DMS remotely.
David Green added: “Our recommended route, for the best security, continuity and ability to react quickly to any crisis is to use a CDK Global’s own cloud hosting. This offers super-robust ‘Tier 3 standard’ data centres, which benefit from the company’s Disaster Recovery service with resilient connectivity and the potential for near-real time data replication – all reinforced by a comprehensive service-level agreement that includes disaster recovery.”
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