All of the education, the innovation, the navigating uncertainty requires money to make it happen. Just as in parts buying power, the collective Pronto Network and NEXUS Automotive International members can invest together on a scale that’s impossible for individual businesses.
“You have to open new opportunities to distributors. It is essential for them to be better prepared,” said Thierry Mugnier, co-founder and chief finance and innovation officer of NEXUS Automotive International. “It allows them to benefit from the wider scope of opportunities, from the wider scope of knowledge—to benefit from the strong foundation that we can bring them. To get connected to different types of industry ecosystems.
“At the same time, being part of a group is about having the best solution that you can leverage for your local market needs,” he continues. “You need to apply it in the way you want.”
“The way business is done in North America versus Europe versus Asia versus the Middle East, Africa is significantly different,” said Robert Roos, president and CEO of the Pronto Network—president of NEXUS North America. “At the same time, the core of the business is similar. We’re all automotive parts distributors. We like to deal with supplier partners that are well-known in the markets. What we can do, what NEXUS has allowed us to do, is to connect with those suppliers that we didn’t have a significant relationship with in the past. It enhances our value to our members, distributors and
service centers.”
Pronto has access to investments that NEXUS is making, and vice versa, like a venture capital fund–focused on Mobility Solutions– based in Delaware. This sort of cross-pollination also gives each group a seat of operation in different places in the world with a dedicated team that is making investments with traditional distributors, as well as with manufacturers.
“First, it gives our members the capacity to be in contact with incredible entrepreneurs, which are talented people that we need in our ecosystem,” Mugnier says. “Second, it gives them the capacity to think differently. Sometimes we find a good startup or good company that can create a value which our distributors can adopt or benefit from.”
A big chunk of the value from groups like the Pronto Network and NEXUS Automotive International comes from the members not needing to search for all of the answers themselves. All they have to do is choose the solution presented by the group that moves their business forward. “And all our members have the opportunity to benefit from this,” they said.