Procon Analytics is a leading innovator of automotive IoT and big data insights, focused on capturing and translating data into actionable business intelligence. Learn more from company leaders about the future of their technology.
Procon Analytics, an Irvine, California-based firm serving North America, integrates a multitude of building blocks into powerful, reliable, scalable, and flexible tools that they deploy as digital enablers to benefit specific market segments.
“Breaking our business model down to its simplest form, we connect things over the Internet,” explains company CEO, Brian Boling. “It sounds easy, but the complexities of connectivity, data extraction, and analysis are formidable. No matter how much hardware innovation, code development, problem solving, and innovative solutions we manage, the customer only becomes loyal to our company once we deliver actionable information that solves burning problems in their business.”
Procon Analytics is a connected-car technology company that enables automotive dealers to more-effectively manage their inventory, their batteries, the test drives, protect financed collateral and more. At the same time, their service improves the overall customer experience in vehicle ownership. This solution has been proven to create more loyal customers and increase dealer profits.
Boling and Bill Cheney, Managing Partner and CTO of the company, have focused their skills and experience in the connected-car marketplace. Their goal is to provide dealers and lenders a “one-stop-shop” for digital marketing and information solutions.
“Dealers need new digital marketing tools that tether the drivers to the dealer long term,” Boling said. “We not only create new tools for our platform, but we also bridge the gap between existing tools in use in the marketplace. We are also working on new integrations with embedded vehicle technology – integrations that improve our ability to send consumers back into the dealership for service and to purchase their next vehicle.”
Procon Analytics operates two subsidiaries: Advantage GPS, LLC and Connected Dealer Services, LLC. Advantage GPS deploys platform elements, both hardware and software, to deliver risk-mitigation services for automotive finance professionals in the subprime vehicle marketplace. Its proven automotive finance expertise has resulted in the most-sophisticated hardware and Artificial Intelligence (AI) software that assists finance professionals, both subprime finance companies and BHPH dealers, in optimizing finance portfolio performance.
The Advantage GPS analytics platform provides high-level and vehicle-specific, granular oversight of a lender’s automotive finance portfolio. Its powerful AI toolset allows for faster, more-informed collections decisions and assists with future funding decisions.
Connected Dealers Services (CDS) deploys platform elements to provide digital marketing solutions to automotive retail dealerships, specifically addressing value throughout a vehicle’s lifecycle. The company’s solution is sold through an Agent Channel and a handful of distributor partners. Its solution includes a suite of dealer-facing features, such as inventory management and service scheduling tools, as well as a sell-through service that car buyers use to monitor vehicle health, while staying connected with their selling dealership. The company has a hands-on, formalized training program and partners with its agents’ clients to assist onboarding and implementation.
Automotive OEM manufacturers understand the value and importance of IoT, but have yet to fully leverage its value to their dealer partners and consumers. It is here where Procon Analytics can and will continue to drive value.
Cheney said that there are now billions of physical device connections around the world that share data via the Internet. Moving forward through the roll out of 5G technology, the world will experience ever higher speeds and lower latency. This will lead to the true rise of smart cities, self-driving vehicles, and smart houses. Procon Analytics will play a lead role in deploying new 5G solutions to its partners, clients, and end-users.
The team at Procon Analytics has a keen understanding of automotive IoT technologies. The vast amounts of data collected via sensors, devices, and cloud-based platforms have resulted in dozens of proprietary innovations that connect automakers, their dealer partners, and consumers in extraordinarily valuable ways. All solutions are on 4G platforms that are 5G ready, as the 5G infrastructures fall into place.
“Dealers and lenders have a singular focus, and that is selling and servicing vehicles,” Cheney said.
“Our job is to collect data throughout the lifecycle of the vehicle and use that information to solve problems, so that dealers can fulfil that purpose more efficiently and with less risk,” Cheney said.
Those same sensors and information can be used to enhance a customer’s experience with their vehicle, especially regarding proper maintenance and safety, Cheney added. When drivers, manufacturers, dealers, finance professionals, and automotive service providers have more, better organized, timely information on the use and health of each vehicle, this leads to more sales and greater profitability.
Procon Analytics spends a lot of time searching for and hiring industry leaders and experts to lead the effort for each segment. It looks for a specific set of skills when recruiting, and this typically involves a combination of familiarity with technology and automotive retailing.
“We may manage technology,” Boling said, “but we are all about people. Our people are what have made us a leader in the industry. This people-centric approach starts from the top. Bill and I decided early in the formation of the company that everyone would be an owner. So, like Southwest Airlines, each of our employees has ownership in the company and therefore they show more ownership and responsibility when delivering their services and ideas. We are all constantly asking how our solutions can improve the lives of our employees, customers, partners, and the communities we serve.”
The Procon Analytics’ team has a deep bench of professionals that includes creators and authors of IoT patents, innovators of new mass-market distribution channels, all led by a visionary innovator whose privately-held firm was the first private automotive aftermarket company to deploy more than 1 million connected devices – right behind Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp.
In the future, Cheney and the team at Procon Analytics predict that 5G technology and AI will dramatically change the IoT industry in numerous and unforeseen ways. As a result, the company is working tirelessly to be at the forefront of this amazing new technology sector.