Investigating the business relationship between a finance house and motor dealerships

Abstract

Building a business relationship is not something that occurs overnight. The research was based on a financial organisation operating in the motor finance industry. The set organisation is deemed to be the second largest motor finance house in the South Africa Motor Finance Industry and enjoys a 30% market share in the motor industry. Compared to its competitors the organisation is the only to still follow a face-to-face approach in building a business relationship with their clients. The current economic environment is challenging with the weakening rand value and a possible recession looming. These are some motivating factors for the researcher to investigate in this relationship. The purpose of this study is to establish the current level of business relationship building attributes within a financial organisation as well as ranking these attributes by way of importance and making some suggestions to enhance the concerned areas identified. The study analysed and identified seven relationship building attributes through doing a literature review. The researcher identified three dealer relationship managers employed by the organisation based on a convenience sample, each representing a specific dealer group in the industry and conducted semi-structured interviews with each manager. The findings through the interviews coupled with the literature review were used to build a questionnaire that was distributed to all the dealer relationship managers employed by the organisation yielding a sample size of 110 participants. Questionnaires were analysed using techniques such as frequency tables, validity testing and reliability testing (including mean, variation, standard deviation and Cronbach Alpha). The study emphasized the fact that there is no standard way to build a relationship but rather several attribute’s that work together to build a business relationship. These attributes were defined as trust, loyalty, commitment, professionalism, integrity, caring and knowledge. Building a business relationship is an ongoing process and should always be viewed by way of focusing externally as well as internally. A company representative can only be as good as his support from the organisation. The researcher finally discussed limitations regarding the current study and raised some recommendations to the specific organisation to enhance existing relationships.