A study into the opportunities franchised dealers will have with mobility services next decade reveals a future of evolving services and retailer collaboration.

Smaller scale dealer groups, lacking their own resources and funding to quickly develop new services in line with consumers moving to ‘usership’ from ownership, are expected to collaborate with each other to gain scale, according to Giuseppe Marotta, who spent the past four years as policy advisor to CECRA, the European dealer trade body.

Marotta, who now works with a joint venture established by seven Italian franchised dealer groups to build new revenue streams, also represented CECRA on Europe’s MaaS Alliance organisation, and will alert automotive retailers to the opportunities which may emerge by 2030 at the Automotive Retail Congress on May 21.

He has already identified two major dealer groups in Europe which have launched their own mobility as a service (MaaS) operations as extensions to their existing rental and leasing businesses.

And elsewhere in Europe, a dealer council has created a collaborative project to target car sharing and ride-sharing services for aftersales.

“Dealers have long been involved in rental, but MaaS goes one step further. Our quest is to ensure dealers think in this way,” he said.

“The MaaS market can definitely be embraced by dealers, no matter what their size.”

• Other presenters at The Automotive Retail Congress, on May 21 at Ricoh Arena, Coventry, include the ICDP, Zeus Capital, Tomorrow's Journey, Barclays, Manheim and Aston Business School. To find out more click here.