Christopher Zikakis Email & Phone Number

Purchased an old, tired Honda dealership in a tough local market. Rebuilt or replaced nearly everything – management team, facility, computer systems, FFE, etc. Innovated new processes to improve customer satisfaction and reduce costs. Customer satisfaction and market penetration consistently ranked in top-tier of all Honda dealers. When we sold it, the dealership ranked #1 of 1081 Honda dealers in USA in customer satisfaction.

Lompoc's Chrysler dealership went out of business during the 2007-09 recession. In 2013, we brought it back to town in a new facility and location across the street from our Honda dealership. Rather than build a separate stand-alone business, we created a streamlined organization by sharing a centralized accounting office, an F&I team, a used car inventory, and other resources with Honda. We consistently generated superior performance in market penetration and customer satisfaction. When Chrysler phased out lower-priced vehicles such as the Dodge Dart, Dodge Avenger, and Chrysler 200 (our bread and butter vehicles), we closed this business and leased the property to another company for a different use.

After spending 15 years in consulting – much of it immersed in the automotive industry – I took a position with the Towbin Automotive Group. At that time, Towbin was comprised of five very large dealerships in Las Vegas (Towbin Dodge, Towbin Infiniti, Prestige Infiniti, Towbin Hummer, and Towbin Motorcars). These dealerships were run independently so they hadn’t yet realized many of the benefits of group ownership. Having led many change initiatives, I realized that change comes easiest when participants want to change. Therefore, I launched a series of 20-Group style meetings for department managers. I started with parts managers. Prior to meetings, I created side-by-side reports of each department’s revenue and expenses. During meetings, I facilitated a discussion of each line of the report – thereby surfacing conversation between managers. Those managers with the best performance described how they obtained their results. Others took notes and learned. At the end of each meeting, each manager had a list of things to implement by the start of the next meeting.The benefits came quickly and easily:• Training. Dealerships are notoriously bad at training and development. However, managers who participated in these sessions agreed this was the best training they received in their careers. (This feedback made it easy to start similar meetings for other department managers.)• Commonization. As managers saw each other’s methods and results, they wanted to copy whatever was working best. Processes and vendor selection started to standardize.• Cost reduction. By combining our purchasing power, we were able to win new price concessions.• Margin improvement. We moved to a more sophisticated parts pricing strategy, which increased margins. • Risk reduction. I had deeper visibility into each department of each dealership, which gave me a better understanding of our opportunities and risks. I was much better equipped to be proactive instead of reactive.

Led consulting projects for automotive manufacturers, importers, and distributors. Clients included General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Honda, Mazda, Kia, Toyota, Monitor Consulting, Ernst and Young Automotive Consulting, The Nickelsen Group, Mullen Advertising, Reynolds+Reynolds, e-PulseTRAK, AIADA, RVIA, and CVMA, automotive retailers, and others.- Personally visited nation’s best-performing sales dealerships to interview managers and identify and catalog best practices in used car management, Internet sales, and customer retention.- Personally visited nation’s best performing service dealerships to interview managers, identify and catalog best practices in service/parts management. - Benchmarked customer service levels provided to dealerships by manufacturers. Cataloged strategies used by various manufacturers to improve dealer performance. Used information to create dealer-support improvement plan. - Led CRM benchmarking and best practice study. Led dealer seminars to teach best practices.- Led ad agency search process for domestic auto manufacturer.- Facilitated planning sessions of senior managers to develop strategy and work plan to transition from selling low-margin products to higher value-added solutions; led formal search process for specialty sales training firm to operationalize the plan.- Led strategy team that executed auto manufacturer’s global Internet sales strategy.- Measured impact of dealership customer retention on profitability; assisted client in creating customer loyalty strategy.- Led multiple negotiation teams that reduced firm’s cost of acquired goods and services. - Redesigned manufacturer's warranty administration process to reduce overall costs.- Created case-based class to teach senior regional employees how to read dealership financial statements; this course was ranked #1 by participants for relevance and helpfulness.- Designed and produced large-scale communication events for automotive companies.

New York, Ny, Us

Master Of Business Administration (M.B.A.), General Business; Finance; Marketing

Education record

Education record