Wednesday, 15 February 2012

Curtis Hutchinson
The office banter about spending a few days in Las Vegas was inevitable. Jetting to the entertainment capital of the US, if not the world, and justifying it as a legitimate business trip is always going to sound implausible. So here goes…

This year’s Nada Convention provided a welcome opportunity to catch up with UK dealers and suppliers and observe what their US counterparts are doing and then make sense of the similarities and differences. With the US motor trade pulling out of recession, sales have been steadily increasing since the 2009 meltdown, there was plenty of optimism on offer at the show and judging by various conversations some of it was rubbing off on visiting Brits.

While this year’s expo and speaker sessions lacked a discernible theme, the event once again highlighted best practices across dealer operations. As one dealer group succinctly put it: “Nada gives you thinking time”.

For anyone who doubts the value of Nada simply visit the Phoenix Car Company website and take a look at the staff blogs. The Paisley-based multi-franchise group has been sending staff to the event for some years and it has become an integral part of the group’s training with information gleaned at the event cascaded down to the rest of the group back at base through formal post-show presentations.

Also, if you’re on Twitter, take a look at #NadaUK to see what other UK visitors made of the even