FADA, ASDC join hands with Google to bridge the digital skills gap in India's auto dealerships

The Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations (FADA) on 16 December announced in a statement that it along with Automotive Skills Development Council (ASDC) has tied up with Google India to bridge the digital skills gap in the country’s auto dealerships and build their capacity in this critical growth driver. ASDC and FADA in partnership Google India aim to prepare over 20,000 auto dealerships to engage with customers in the ongoing and post-pandemic era. The initiative will focus on training over 20,000+ auto dealerships across the country to build an online presence, and provide digital skill training to 100,000+ auto dealers across the marketing and sales divisions. [caption id=“attachment_7505201” align=“alignnone” width=“1280”]  Google[/caption] Tailor-made by Google India under its “Grow with Google” initiative, the training program will be conducted via a series of webinars on Digital Marketing, Hyper Local Marketing, and Full Funnel Strategy on Google India’s YouTube channel. The focus of the program is on empowering dealer principals to adopt digital tools and platforms to engage with customers. In its second phase, the program also aims to train frontline sales and marketing executives via a series of vernacular executional videos. This will be followed by an online assessment and certification by Google India, ASDC and FADA.

Enhance your digital skills by learning the most talked about marketing method- #HyperlocalMarketing with @GoogleIndia. Register at https://t.co/kmmSH1hcNP to #GrowWithGoogle and optimize your #marketingstrategy for driving better online presence & lead generation among others. pic.twitter.com/8qgz0rsxCr

— ASDC (@SkillsASDC) December 17, 2020

Commenting on the initiative, Nikhil Bansal, Head of Automotive, Google India, said “Over the years, the window to influence purchase decisions through offline efforts has become smaller. The average number of visits to dealerships in India fell by 50% over the last three years from 2016 to 2019. And now, COVID-19 has made consumers further reluctant to visit car dealerships, and as a result, walk-ins are even fewer. To aid business recovery, auto players are encouraged to take their dealerships to customers, online. We have been working with leading auto OEMs to help them digitise their dealership networks, and with this initiative, we are now bringing our learning and support to handhold the larger auto dealer ecosystem to go digital in collaboration with ASDC and FADA. We are really excited to join hands with the industry in this first-of-its-kind initiative to help the dealer fraternity and support them in this necessary transition."