Mobility Global: A New Public Spinoff of S&P Global Mobility Focused on Automotive Retail

Brian Pasch0:00Hi, this is Brian Pasch, and welcome to our pre-NADA podcast. Today's the big day. The show kicks off, and we have breaking news to cover. Just moments ago, the press releases went out, and I needed to get some clarity on a reorg that's going to transform our transform the power of many companies into one unified solution to helping dealers sell more cars and service and be more profitable in a digital age. To get the facts straight, I am bringing in Aaron Baldwin, former leader of automotiveMastermind, but now the president of Sales Solutions. Aaron, welcome to the show.

Aaron Baldwin0:57Thanks for having me, Brian. It's a pleasure, as always.

Brian Pasch1:00So, Aaron, automotiveMastermind was part of S&P Global Mobility, and there's a number of great companies in the S&P framework. And like many organizations do, over time, they question structure to really maximize the value of all its components. And that's what you've been going through. So, the news just broke. Tell us about Mobility Global under the direction of Bill Eager. What does that mean to the dealer community, to automotive retail, from manufacturing down to Tier 3?

Aaron Baldwin1:47Mobility Global is incredibly exciting, and I think it's going to mean a lot of really fantastic things for the automotive industry across the board, you know, from dealers to OEMs to industry partners, and not just in the United States, but also globally. Now, as we have more information, we're certainly going to be sharing that out. And I couldn't be more excited and humbled to be leading up the sales solutions division within Mobility Global. But expect some more information to come towards the end of next week from Bill Eager, as you mentioned, who is our current president of S&P Global Mobility and our incoming CEO of Mobility Global.

Brian Pasch2:23So, listen, dealers are going through a process, right, of evaluating their tech stack, their tech partners. They want better efficiencies. It makes sense because of the great portfolio of companies you have. So, from what I understand from what I understand from the announcement that just came out today, day one of NADA, was that under Bill, there'll be two primary divisions, which will be CARFAX, I guess we'd call that B2C, and then B2B.

Aaron Baldwin2:54Yeah.

Brian Pasch2:55And within that B2B organization, you'll be the president of Sales Solutions. For dealers who are not familiar with the B2B solutions that will be part of Mobility Global, what are those companies?

Aaron Baldwin3:12Yeah, happy to elaborate on that. So, we mentioned sales solutions. The other division within B2B is planning solutions led by Kristen Balasia. And that division itself, just briefly on it, is focused heavily on helping manufacturers and parts suppliers make better decisions about, you know, how many they should produce, what they should produce, and how they come to market from a planning and production standpoint. from a planning and production standpoint.

Brian Pasch3:41Super important, yeah.

Aaron Baldwin3:44Very important. And so on the sales solution side, what we did is we took automotiveMastermind, as you mentioned earlier, along with two other really well-known, high-value brands in their own regard, Polk Automotive Solutions as well as Market Scan. And we're bringing those three solutions together into this new division, Sales Solutions. Highly synergistic. So, we have all of the 100-year legacy within Polk Automotive. We have the best-in-class market reporting industry intelligence that's out there from Catalyst for Insight through all of our loyalty reporting, Market Scan with all of their heritage and being the best-in-class and payment calculation and understanding how buyers are actually transacting and how you should appropriately price a vehicle.

Aaron Baldwin4:38And then automotiveMastermind that's helping bring and bridge all of that together into a unique solution for retail so that we can help predict and understand, you know, who is most likely to purchase in the next 90 days, what they're going to be purchasing for, what's the price point that they're going to be at. And with all of those being brought into a single division, we're going to really be able to amplify the effects of all of our great data estate across the three businesses.

Brian Pasch5:10You know, and that makes great sense because, you know, CARFAX is a success story on its own. It has a strategy and it's really become more than just a marketplace, more than just a trusted consumer brand, but just a really effective brand for consumers and dealers. It's that common bond of trust. On the other hand, when I saw the announcement, I said, this makes complete sense, bringing Masterminds, Polk, and Market Scan together because your work, you know, that you and I were doing with the Morgan Auto Group, with Masterminds, opening up data as a service, hygiene as a service, predictive scoring as a service. This, when you think of Market Scan was really pricing as a service, right?

Brian Pasch6:04And yet if a tech company or a dealer wanted to leverage, it would be like three separate dev calls, right? Three separate integration projects. And what I can see here is more of a one-stop shop for dealer groups, tech companies, research, you know, tech, and AI tools who need the best, most accurate data in real time. So, really, full data as a service, is that kind of seems to align with where you think the market might be going?

Aaron Baldwin6:44Absolutely, Brian. And I'd add one caveat to that. It was also three separate phone calls to get support or to figure out which solution is best for you. We're going to make that engagement with our businesses streamlined. We're going to make it so there's one phone call to make and access all of these great solutions, whether it's access from a data service, as you mentioned before, or for those that need something that's a little bit more turnkey, that has a technology front end on it. So, they can access all of our proprietary data through our systems. We'll also be providing that. So, we're going to meet those dealers and the manufacturers and those technology providers wherever they are in their journey and make sure that it's an easy engagement to reach out to us on the sales solution side and to be able to understand all that we can offer them to help them grow their businesses.

Brian Pasch7:36Well, I think it's smart. Obviously, the mobility companies really deserve to be together because all the other things that S&P is doing is, you know, tangential. You know, they're not closely linked. So, I love that idea. They're a financial services business, right?

Aaron Baldwin7:54Exactly.

Brian Pasch7:54You know, and when I see what's happening in automotive retail, which is this idea of data unification, data hygiene, data activation from some central source. So, seeing, and you were a part of it, you know, working with DriveCentric, with their API for the Morgan Auto Group, it seemed to me that in the last two years, dealers and tech companies have woken up changing the architecture. They want data on demand, they want it clean, fast, easy, and they want to have data-empowered decision-making instead of send me a report, I'll look at it, or something manual. So, is this one of the reasons why this reorg happened now to meet what I would call more sophisticated automotive retailers, more sophisticated, API-driven interconnects between software?

Aaron Baldwin8:58Yes, Brian, absolutely. This is, it has a lot to do with the timing of this reorganization. As you mentioned earlier, the work that we've done with Morgan Automotive Group was really our first, our first entry into combining all of our amazing data resources and making that available for a very specific use case for a dealer group. And that conversation is happening all across the industry right now. It's happening with dealer groups, it's happening with manufacturers, it's happening with technology providers. And so, us bringing our teams together and our data together so that it's easier to interface with us, it's easier for you to be able to access all of these amazing data services so that we can help empower really that future of automotive.

Aaron Baldwin9:41And, you know, most importantly, help you curate an amazing consumer experience by knowing what's really going on with these individuals, with these households, how you should best approach them, and approaching them with the best possible deal and calculate it in a way that's actually transactable when they get into the store. And that's a big part of this. You know, we shared an interesting statistic the other day as we were looking at the affordability equation. And when a customer comes into a dealership and if the payment has gone up from what they thought it was going to be during their research period or during their conversations with the dealership, if it goes up by about $50 or more, 60% of those people are going to walk out the door.

Aaron Baldwin10:24And interestingly enough, of those 60 people, about half of them are just going to drive down to the competitive store at the end of the street, empowered with the information they have now, and strike that deal with your competitor. So it's really important to make sure that as you look at these consumer experiences, to interconnect all of these various data sources across the board from, you know, all your comms through all of your pricing and all of your quoting.

Brian Pasch10:49Yeah, and just from personal experience, if dealers are saying, well, what does this mean to me practically? You know, for many years, dealers have read, well, automotiveMastermind is one of the best partners in helping me retain customers and upgrade customers. And one of the things that you developed over 10 years of data study was your BPS score. But that BPS score was in your hands. In this new world, and we've tested this out with Morgan, with these data as a service, CDPs can be updated with predictive modeling, which improves Google campaigns, Facebook campaigns. Every outreach can be automated, and I love this partnership, the fact that Polk registration data, right, information.

Brian Pasch11:42I love the fact that DR tools and custom marketing offers can pump right into Market Scan. And this is all happening real time with one contract, with one relationship with Mobility Global. It just makes sense. Aaron, obviously, we want people today to get over to the booth. There's a lot of other announcements that will be coming at the booth here at NADA. What's one promise that you'd like to get out to dealers who are maybe a Market Scan client or doing work with Polk or masterminds? What's one promise about this transition and the future of Mobility Global and their business?

Aaron Baldwin12:37I think the one promise that I would want to make sure that all of our partners and customers and prospective partners and customers understand is what you experience from us today, regardless of the business that you're interfacing with, is always customer-centric, is always customer-first. And that is not going to change. So as we go through this transition, you shouldn't expect any slowdown of our dealer relations managers or account managers making sure that we're providing you with best-in-class service. And you should only see that amplified as we continue to streamline how we are going to be interfacing with your group, talking to your stores, talking to the manufacturers,

Aaron Baldwin13:20and making it much more seamless to engage with all the different assets that we have within Mobility Global and specifically sales solutions. So we are going to always continue to provide the best-in-class customer experience for all of our clients. And we are going to just work our hardest to continue improving that and continue pushing the envelope there. But with that being said, the other promise is on innovation. This intention of spinning out and establishing this division is an intention of creating exponential opportunity. We are not scaling back the investment inside of our businesses. We're not scaling back our investments inside of our innovation. And we really see this as a force multiplier and an accelerator for us.

Aaron Baldwin14:04So expect a lot of great things to come, whether you are used to talking to the team at Mastermind or you're used to talking to the team at Polk. You're going to see a lot more coming from us over the next, you know, call it 12 to 18 months. And we've got some exciting things in the booth that you should come hear about as well.

Brian Pasch14:20Great. Well, I know Bill's vision. One team of mobility experts serving tier one, two, and three in new and innovative ways. Love that. So dealers who are listening in and at NADA, please make sure you get over to the Mobility Global booth. And if you're not going to NADA, hey, reach out to Aaron, get some setup, go to the new website and just take the time to see how your business might be reimagined with the tech and data services that are going to be offered now and that fall under. Thank you for Aaron's leadership. Aaron, congratulations on this new opportunity, this new venture. Man, you must be busy leading up to NADA today.

Brian Pasch15:15So celebrate all the attention that this announcement will have. And what we'll do is follow up in another month or two, just see how everything's going. Make sure we update dealers on the progress in transforming these multiple powerhouses into one unified team of mobility experts under Bill. So, hey, thanks for coming on today's show and hope to see you at the show myself.

Aaron Baldwin15:45Absolutely, Brian. Look forward to it. And thank you so much for having me.

Brian Pasch15:48Great. Have a great day.