Volkswagen Germany wants its retail partners to become much more digital in sales and service in the future. "Online sales will come. Today's business model no longer has a sustainable future," says Thomas Zahn. However, the Head of Sales and Marketing at Volkswagen Germany also says: "We are fully committed to contract sales in the digital age." To this end, Volkswagen is developing a customer portal that manufacturers and dealers can access together. In future, every salesperson and service advisor in the dealerships will be equipped with the tablet-based application. Around 210 Volkswagen partners are already working with this technology today, another 550 VW partners will be added in 2017, and by 2019 all sales and service employees at dealerships and service partners in Germany will have access to it.  

In 2008, the Volkswagen network in Germany still comprised 1,232 dealerships and 1,255 service outlets including 638 agents. At the end of 2016, there were only 1,069 dealerships and 1,004 including 107 agents. When asked about the future size of the network, Zahn explained to "kfz-betrieb": "We have been optimizing the Volkswagen network for many years. This is nothing new. And the number of dealerships and brokers has been decreasing for many years. The latter will soon no longer exist in Germany.

The detailed interview with VW Germany boss Thomas Zahn will appear in the "kfz-betrieb" weekly journal on February 17. In this issue, "kfz-betrieb" also presents Volkswagen Germany's digital strategy in detail.

You can order a free press copy of the current issue 7 of "kfz-betrieb" from: pressestelle@vogel.de.

"kfz-betrieb" is the most widely read trade magazine in the automotive industry and has been informing the automotive trade and service sector for over 100 years. "kfz-betrieb" is the official organ of the German automotive trade (ZDK), the professional interest group for around 38,000 car dealerships and workshops. News from the entire automotive industry is available at www.kfz-betrieb.de and in the daily newsletter. The parent company Vogel Business Media is Germany's largest trade media company with 100+ trade journals, 100+ web portals, 100+ business events as well as numerous mobile offerings and international activities. Its headquarters are in Würzburg. The company celebrated its 125th birthday in 2016.