The IBIS Global Summit was held in Baveno, Italy on 10-12 June. Hundreds of international delegates came together to listen to the well presented sessions and network.
It was suitable weather for a collision repair gathering on the first night with a storm, torrential rain and a good smattering of reasonably sized hail. Networking drinks and dinner were thankfully inside.
The conference theme was Passion for Progress and kicked off with a lively presentation by Dr Annette Winkler, former head of the Smart product division, Daimler AG about her time at Smart and the decision to become an electric only brand. Very interesting, although this delegate struggled to see the relevance to the repair market. She did show a couple of very smart Smart videos though.
The next session was a fascinating if rather frightening and was titled the myths and truths of AI for the automotive collision repair sector presented by Professor Hod Lipson, professor of engineering and data science, Columbia University. He talked about the development of artificial intelligence and how after being a bit of a disappointment it is finally taking off and phenomenal sums are being invested in developing it further. Part of the difficulty in talking about AI is that you can't see it but it's everywhere. Investment started in 2012 - by 2017 he couldn't fit the graph line on the huge conference screen. He explained the difference between rule-based AI which works on a set of rules which is the AI that has been used in the past. Now we can utilise AI which is based on probabilities, so you don't tell it what to do you show it what to do by giving examples and it calculates the probabilities. The fuel for all of the learning is data - which is why data is king.
AI can already detect a number of issues with cars and report this back to the owner or manufacturer. Interestingly Lipson said that he believed automated cars would increase vehicle ownership and variety (e.g. a delivery drone) and not decrease as has been predicted that people will share.
It is the cloud where AIs can share experience with other AIs which is why the more miles driverless cars cover the better the AI will be as it shares all of its experiences to a hive mind. In terms of collision repair its already being used to detect accident damage from photographs, so for instance it can send the car to the appropriate repair facility and understand if the vehicle is an instant total loss.
The next session was about the challenges of managing data. As far as I know this is not really relevant to Australia but data theft is a massive issue in Europe. Often its employees stealing customer contact details and each address is worth a considerable sum and can be resold and reused up to four or five times.
How to make more profit and keep it by the KPI guy Jeff Smith was an excellent presentation of the concepts from his book. You have to love a guy who has his own coat of arms (I'm not sure what the story is there but the fluffy dog in it is a nice touch). For someone with limited counting skills and no accounting skills my takeaway was that you have to circulate your money - that is use it as many times as you can. That is the key to profit. In order to be able to use it, you have to be careful other people don't keep it - late payers etc. I would have liked to have seen some specific bodyshop examples here.
The six secrets of successful bodyshops for those of you who missed David Leuhr at the Collision Repair Expo was a great presentation. The author of The Secrets of America's greatest bodyshops is passionate about the industry, incredibly knowledgeable and pretty funny too. He talked about different aspects and attitudes of various successful US repairers.
The most relevant session of the day and one that inspired me for our LIVE conference (11 October, Melbourne make a note in your diary) was the customer of the future, looking forward to 2025. Millennials will rule retail by 2025 and they have incredibly high expectations of customer service. The research through channels such as Youtube and Google, they rely on reviews by their peers. They also expect seamless interaction and a choice of platforms to interact with their service providers – which includes vehicle repairs. The entire industry needs to collaborate to change create the 'experience' millennials expect.
James Grant from Verisk Insurance Solutions talked about way of improving a motor claims journey. He talked about the poor profit margins that the 20 largest auto insurance companies make but how technology can cut out waste and costs such as customers being in hire cars for too long. Verisk also owns an AI product which detects and analyses accident damage and will be talking about this at our LIVE conference (did we mention it's in Melbourne on 11 October).
The last session of the day was an update from Jennifer Boyer, Ford's global collision business and strategy manager. Last year at IBIS she announced that Ford was to have a global collision repair network, this year she updated us on how that project was going.
Then it was time to get dressed for the evening gala dinner which was delicious.
Day two began with a fascinating session from Mary Mahoney, vice president insurance replacement at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Enterprise is a mammoth company (still privately owned) and thinks of itself as a mobility solutions providor and offers way more services that just car rental. Mahoney talked about the opportunity in disruption – how can we all win? She made a very compelling argument for creating the right customer experience and understanding how customers expect to interact with you. I'd say we have a long way to go in Australia and a lot will have to change.
Overall the theme that repeated itself was that customers are demanding a seamless experience with no friction points and that good service doesn't cut it any more, it has to be an exceptionally good 'experience' or they will go elsewhere.
The last session included a presentation from Worldskills and a panel on skills shortages which included two former WorldSkills world champions.