CDK Global, which connects the automotive retail industry with IT products and services, has set its eyes on the Indian market. The market, in India, though smaller when compared with Chinese and Japanese markets, is beginning to grow, according to top executives of CDK Global.

“India sells about 3.3 million vehicles a year, which is way lower than the Chinese market. Also, India is a price sensitive market. We need a product that addresses this requirement,” Arvind Chaturvedi, Managing Director of CDK Global (India), told Business Line.

The firm developed a product DMS Lite, a simplified version of the DMS (Dealer Managing System), Autoline Drive, for price-sensitive markets such as India and China.

Though the roadmap of this product beyond China is not yet fully matured, the company sees this a potential product for India. It will be a product CDK will use to either enter new markets or new market segments (such as smaller dealer groups).

CDK Global provides IT products and solutions for the whole automotive retail ecosystem, which includes OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), dealers, financial services, service centres and all other components.

Dean W Crutchfield, Executive Vice-President and Chief Information Officer of CDK Global, said that the company was working towards building the product capabilities of the Indian team and enabling it to conceptualize, drive and own the products.

The firm runs two centres in the country at Hyderabad and Pune with an aggregate workforce of 1,400 employees, forming 16 per cent of its global workforce. In 2018, the revenue of CDK Global was $2.27 billion. It provides services to 28,000 automotive dealers and top OEMs.

Integration hub

Arvind Chaturvedi said the firm provides an integration hub to its clients that allows them to plug in their existing IT modules. “We provide APIs allowing the clients and developers to build solutions that can be integrated to the system,” he said.

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