VEHIX.COM
A DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEM

PREPARED BY GROUP "C"
Paul Bruges
Carla Burris
Henny Marske

Decision Support Systems
Dr. Vicky Sauter
University of Missouri - St. Louis Winter 2002

INTRODUCTION

This report is a description and an evaluation of a decision support system selected by Group C in the MSIS 497 course during the Winter Semester of 2002 at the University of Missouri - St. Louis. The group selected Vehix.com (http://www.vehix.com), which is a Web site designed for the consumer in the market to purchase a vehicle. Vehix.com is owned by Automall.com, LLC, which also owns www.iautoshopper.com and www.automall.com. Automall.com, LLC captures automotive information from various sources and is probably using contact management software that allows it to market the information to different market segments. Compared to its sister Web sites, Vehix.com appears to be geared to the less sophisticated computer user by virtue of its simple, clear, crisp and uncluttered design.

DESCRIPTION

What Kind of Managerial Work is the DSS Designed to Support?

Because the site assists the consumer in researching various factors that generally influence the purchasing decision of a vehicle (e.g., price, financing, safety, etc.), Vehix.com relieves the burden (effort) that traditionally falls on dealers and their sales staff and finance institutions, for example, from providing the information. Equally, it allows the consumer to conduct most, if not all, of the research from the comfort of the home or work office directly from his/her PCs desktop. This effectively relieves the consumer from having to access several sources of information through other more time-consuming means, such as telephoning and/or making appointments with dealers and lending institutions for a physical inspection of desired vehicles and evaluation of financing alternatives. In other words, from the point of view of the vendors (i.e., car dealers, credit and lending institutions, etc.), the sharing of product information required by the consumer shifts from a "live" agent (a sales person) to an electronic agent that manages the flow of relevant information as selected by the consumer. From the point of view of the consumer, the depth and breadth of information to make an informed purchasing decision depends on what factors he/she selects to consider for making a decision to buy or not to buy; to buy vs. to lease; to buy one car over another; or to select one trim package over another, for example.

The strength of this decision support system (or weakness) depends on the extent to which the consumer is satisfied in being able to extract credible, reliable and current information. In the absence of desired data and information, he/she would have to rely on other information retrieval methods such as visiting dealer showrooms, interviewing financial institutions and, possibly, doing library research. Specifically as it relates to Vehix.com, the system allows the consumer to consider the following factors: 1) to buy new vs. used; 2) to do comparison shopping based on price and features selected; 3) to evaluate safety features; 4) to shop for best financing terms; 5) to design a vehicle according to personal preferences; 6) to create "what if" scenarios; 7) to contact a dealer for additional information, if needed; and 8) to make a selection and purchase a vehicle of their choice, if so desired.

Which Decision Role does Vehix.com support?

Vehix.com performs essentially two major roles:

1. Education and information sharing. This evidenced by the type of information that the site makes available, such as: vehicle history reports, vehicle safety records, trade-in values, virtual test drive, finance products, etc. This information sharing replaces the time and effort normally spent by the dealers educating the consumer about the specific features of vehicles. Much of the "up-front" research is accomplished before any contact with a dealer is necessary.
   
2. Customer contact management and facilitation. Once the consumer has a clearer picture of what kind and type of automobile he/she is interested in purchasing, Vehix.com facilitates communication between the consumer and dealers. In other words, once a car selection is more defined in the consumers' mind their contact with a dealer can be more focused in the final negotiation effort. From the dealer's perspective, the Web site allows the exploitation of qualified sales leads, which is a more productive endeavor for the dealer and sales staff.

Examples of Decisions Vehix.com Supports

Vehix.com offers a number of tools that assist the consumer. From the home page the consumer can:

1. FIND: This tool helps consumers to locate a vehicle of their choice by selecting a car by either make, type, price, dealer or distance. If the selection of a particular make is made by distance from the consumer's zip code, for example, the resulting information is a list with the number of cars available for the selected make within the selected radius. Or, if the selection is made by price, the resulting information is a list of available models within a certain radius. With additional "drill-down" capabilities, the consumer can find out the number of available cars, by model selected, within the desired distance radius and ranked by price.
   
   
   
   
2. RESEARCH: This feature assists consumers in finding reliable, current and relevant information about car characteristics that are important to the customers. For example, the consumer can "build" (i.e., configure) a car by first selecting a car make of their choice. Further drill-down capabilities delivers a display of all recent model selections for the car make selected. Selecting a certain model, displays a picture of the cars with the various options and associated prices that are available. Selecting a particular option provides a brief synopsis of the car with the configured price of the car. From here, the consumer can further customize and refine the options available by specifying interior and exterior trim, and paint options. At this point, the consumer has two options: 1) proceed and obtain further information from a dealer, or 2) exit.
   
   
   
   
3. FINANCE: This page assists consumers in locating financing options that fit their economic model.
   
   
   
   
4. COMPARE: This tool helps consumers to compare 2 or more vehicles, side-by-side, in terms of price, features, specifications, and safety, for example.
   
   
   
   
5. SELL: This is the only page in the site that requires a user id and password. The user id is the given email address of the seller to which information and potential interest of a buyer is mailed. Once logged in, the seller has four options: 1) add a new car listing; 2) edit the current car listing; 3) update or renew the account history; and 4) update the contact information.
   
   
   
   
6. BUY: This page moves the consumer closer to the final purchasing act. It allows the buyer to obtain
   
   • Quick quotes
   • Custom order

   1. By type
   2. Pre-owned
   3. By dealer
      
      
      

Vehix.com knowledge acquisition, knowledge presentation and knowledge selection abilities 

Acquisition 

Sources of data include dealers, manufacturers, insurance companies, finance companies, Kelley blue book, and customers. We were unable to determine how "corporate" data are collected and we assume it is via provision of databases over the Internet. User data is collected via online forms, results of credit checks, surfing habits, etc. 

Presentation 

Data is usually presented to the customer in table form. It is easy to read and gets to the highpoints of lots of important data but not much support in terms of explanation of information so you may not know why the info is important. Seems adequate for most users but should feature more explanation or links to supporting information. 

Selection 

If selection ability is related to drill-down capability, Vehix.com has moderate ability to drill down. Consumers can build their own vehicle, obtain safety information, find a dealer to go see the car, and then do a title check on the VIN of an individual car. However, these functions aren't directly related - the user can't click on a link on the build-your-own page to get insurance quotes on the configured vehicle (though you can click to fill out a form so a dealer will contact you.)

EVALUATION

Knowledge

One of the key questions we attempted to answer while evaluating Vehix.com is to what extent does the site provide valuable information that leads to meaningful knowledge for the consumer. In other words, does the site provide information that consumers can translate into knowledge so that they can select a vehicle based on car characteristics that are important to them? In this context, we found Vehix.com to be reasonably good. Specifically, Vehix.com provides information that is understandable, particularly for the average consumer not well versed in automotive technical jargon. In this regard, the site uses natural, every day language. At the same time, the site could be enhanced if it were to provide a data dictionary as it assumes the consumer knows and understands such acronyms as "APR" and "rpm," for example. Vehix.com also provides very relevant information when considering the purchase of a used vehicle as evidenced by the ability to search a specific car's history. Consumer knowledge is further enhanced by vehicle comparison functionality as well as providing the ability to create "what-if" scenarios that the consumer defines. Decision support systems are measured against their ability to deliver information that the consumer wants and at levels of aggregation that the consumer finds meaningful. In this regard, we rank Vehix.com as average. While data is available for most car makes and models, the summarization of the data is not very robust. The one exception being a well developed ability to provide the number of available cars meeting the consumer's selection criteria within a predefined radius.

Vehix.com also offers a car configurator or "build-your-own," if you will. Our evaluation is that this functionality is average at best. Compared to the robustness of similar capabilities offered directly by manufacturers (such as Mercedes Benz, for example), Vehix.com would probably rank in the lower half of the spectrum. Still, for the casual or "one-stop" shopper, Vehix.com "build-your-own" configurator offers "good-enough" functionality.

Decision-Making 

Another area against which decision support systems are evaluated is in their capacity to assist the user to solve problems along rational lines and, perhaps, even along non-rational lines if one were to take the post-modern view. For rational decision-making, Vehix.com supports the process along economic, technical and legal considerations, primarily. For example, the consumer has the ability to determine 

• How much equity they have in the car they currently own; 
• How much they need to finance; 
• Sources of financing; 
• Vehicle history; 
• Technical specifications; 
• Safety record; 
• Recall record; 
• Locations of nearby dealerships; and 
• Real-time dealer stock information. 

As far as the decision-making process based on the softer issues that sway a consumer to select one car over another, Vehix.com does provide the ability to consider color and trim selection, and view a car by evaluating its "look" through pictures. This seems to adequately address the normal need of individuals to take a "look-see" before any final purchase of a product is made.

Built-in Intelligence 

From the perspective of built-in intelligence as a way to supporting decision-making, Vehix.com limits itself to providing data and leaves it up to the consumer to evaluate factors he/she considers important in the decision-making process. For example, Vehix.com does not provide any guidance on how to rationally research a car, on assisting the novice car purchaser on how to navigate the necessary steps to successfully purchase a car, nor does it capture user preferences and suggest to the consumer certain factors for their consideration. This last ability, if exploited, would make the system much more robust and add value for the consumer. The only exception in this regard is that Vehix.com does offer an explanation about the "lease" vs. "buy" problem. Here a consumer could make a rational decision on whether it is best to buy or lease based on the explanation provided by the Web site.

Characteristics of Information 

There are a number of characteristics of the information that is provided by decision support systems. The following is our assessment of how Vehix.com measures up to each: 

• Timeliness: the content provided is current although we could not verify how quickly the site is updated when vehicle information changes. 
• Sufficiency: given that the site probably suits the needs of most buyers, the depth and breadth of information appears to be sufficient for the needs of the consumer. 
• Level of aggregation: here the site does not offer much versatility. With the exception of providing the inventory levels of a selected car model within a given radius, the summarization of data is almost non-existence. 
• Understandability: the site is generally easy to understand noted by the absence of codes and the use of natural language. As noted earlier, however, the user could benefit from a data dictionary to assist in defining terms that otherwise are assumed to be understood. 
• Freedom from bias: Vehix.com does not appear to be biased in favor or against any particular make or model. All seem to be represented in the database. Car reviews, on the other hand, could potentially be biased; however, a more thorough evaluation of the reviews would be needed before a categorical statement of review bias can be made. On the other hand, there may be an unintended bias in the financing/insurance information as it relies on a few companies for this information. 
• Comparability: Vehix.com allows the consumer to compare a vehicle of their choice with one or more selected cars. This functionality is very useful for comparison shopping. 
• Reliability: There do not appear to be any glaring errors. 
• Redundancy: the group was unable to determine how Vehix.com stores or backsup the data. 
• Cost efficiency: The group did not obtain any information about this characteristic. It is our evaluation that the value proposition for Vehix.com relies, perhaps, on revenues generated from the number of "eye balls" viewing certain makes and models. 
• Appropiateness of Format: In this regard, the information is presented in a simple and straightforward manner. The site offers images to view a selected car but does not use other multi media to communicate content.

Benefits: What & Who 

What

• Easy to use - big link images to main functions, intuitive organization 
• Not a lot of distracting graphics, trimmed down to the useful bits 
• Provides a lot of useful information from disparate sources - one-stop car shopping 
• Makes customers more informed consumers - know what a vehicle should cost and can bargain more intelligently. 
• Customers don't have to go to the dealer right away. They can do a lot of "weeding out" online. When they do go to the dealer, selecting and buying a car will go much faster.

Who 

There are a number of customer types that would benefit from accessing Vehix.com. Along with their respective decision-making drivers they are: 

• Families with children 
  - Roomy enough for family and cargo and pets 
  - Safety 
• Business executive 
  - Classy image 
  - Might consider leasing so can always have "new model" 
• Trade 
  - Trucks that can haul equipment 
  - Technical specifications 
  - Fleet purchasing options? 
• College student 
  - Value considerations to buy/maintain (reliability) 
  - Value for trade-in 
  - Low car payment

CONCLUSION

Vehix.com is an average and uncomplicated decision support system best suited for the less sophisticated user of electronic information. It is a site that makes economical use of graphics thus eliminating the need for powerful PCs and Internet connections for downloading image and graphic-rich content. This could be viewed as an advantage over other sites that incorporate graphics and multi media. The assessment of the group is that Vehix.com adequately provides reliable information about vehicles and that consumers can make rational decisions based on the knowledge they are able to gain from visiting the site.