That’s it – I’m out!

There’s been a bit of an epidemic of similar announcements from others in the industry in recent times. Something in the water perhaps? I’m certainly not aware of any master plan in that sense and perhaps it’s purely coincidental.

It’s quite a change for me to be stepping out of an industry that’s treated me well for the last four decades and while pondering the idea of retiring I spoke to a few people that are already in that state.

The responses were largely in the manner of “never regretted it, and wish I’d done it earlier”. Comforting, but I’ll have to wait and see if that’s how it pans out for me.

Entrepreneurs

I have enjoyed working in our industry. It is typified by entrepreneurs who will give anything a go. They’re the type of people who search for the opportunities and take the chance. I admire that, perhaps because I’ve never been brave enough to step outside the relative comforts of ‘working for the man’.

It seems I will now have to adapt to a new way of life after decades in an industry that has always been very adaptive. Mostly through necessity simply because it’s a case of adapt or quit.

That said, some operators are showing signs of strain these days as they try to do what they have always done so well – adapt. The scale and depth of change we are now facing is bigger than we have ever encountered. The vehicle itself is changing, retail operating models are in flux, the concepts of vehicle ownership and access is being challenged, and transport systems are evolving in multiple directions, and the car is increasingly being discouraged from the centres of larger cities. The pace of change is also accelerating. We no longer have the luxury of navigating one change at a time. Rather than letting matters evolve, the regulators have contributed by pushing the ideas via what seems to have been an endless chain of proposals, which manifest in my world in the form of submissions. All the relevant industry associations do their best to apply influence where they can, but most often those efforts seem to be to no avail.

Industry proved right

A perfect example would be the changes to finance laws about 18 months ago. During the lead-up, the industry said the ideas were excessive, would be counter-productive and would miss the mark. Within a week of implementation, the industry was proved right. They slowly and reluctantly wound back some of the changes – but not fully.

Clean Car Discount (CCD) might be another example – “a toosuccessful policy” according to one commentary as programme changes were recently announced (only 16 months after launch) to address the gaping financial ‘pot-hole’ that had developed. And with almost no warning (two months) industry now faces the task of realigning activity to fit the new paradigm. And chances are CCD may have to be revised again even before industry has fully adapted to that last round.

Change is a fact of life - we all know that.

But do we need to change everything? It sometimes seems that anything developed in the past is somehow now wrong. Case in point, many years ago we were told the teaching of reading and arithmetic was all wrong and it needed to be changed. Twenty years later, we now ‘read’ that those new ideas were a failure, and we need to go back to the old ways. A failure of generational impact.

Maybe new is not always best –just saying.

With that I move enthusiastically toward my next life phase.

Best wishes everyone and I watch with great interest to see how things go.