Collaboration in a time of Covid

Greater collaboration within the automotive sector could be a happy unintended consequence of Covid-19, and it could be the difference between success and failure for many smaller repairers.

A fall out of the pandemic has been more transparency and communication between sectors and shops, but now bodyshops have been urged to take this to next level and actively collaborate with each other to navigate a way out of this crisis.

Rob Ward, founder of RWC Training, said: “No one in this industry can sit back and wait until restrictions are lifted. You don’t even know what you’re waiting for. You have to move forward. Initially I kept telling myself that we’d be alright when things get back to normal, but then I realised things are not going to get back to normal – certainly not any time soon.

“So I came up with a few strategies and one of them is collaborating a lot more with other businesses because we can’t continue to grow and expand in the Covid-19 world alone. We need to do it together. It’s helped us massively.”

RWC has recently announced partnerships with training providers Auto-Motivate and OurVirtualAcademy, and is also looking outside the industry to take its services to a much wider marketplace.

Ward added: “It’s interesting because when I approached other businesses they had as many reasons to work with us as we did to work with them. Some of the conversations I’ve had with other training providers in the last couple of months have been some of the most productive conversations I’ve had in a long time. And all it takes is picking up the phone. So don’t be afraid to talk to your competitors. Collaboration really is the way out of this.”