How valuable is a used car manager for a single point dealership?

In my recent travels I have started to see dealerships do away without a used car manager.  I am talking about dealerships that are selling between 70 and 100+ used cars per month.  In fact, it seems to be a role and responsibility that a GSM or even GM have started to take over.  The technology that we have in place for merchandising and pricing inventory has turned used car sales into a simpler process where a few marketing tools such as vAuto, HomeNet, and others have eliminated the need for having a costly six figure manager on staff.  In fact, the dealerships that have no used car manager have a used inventory merchandising manager that is just in charge of making sure that inventory is properly being taken care of, the right amount of pictures get taken, and the inventory is posted properly on the internet.  They also deal with buyers and are in charge of making sure that inventory arrives as it should.  I noticed that these people work for less money then a used car manager and are basically an assistant to the GSM or GM.

Some might see this is as a negative thing because they might blame technology for putting people out of work while others might see it as a positive thing because they do not have to deal with the extra ego of an arrogant used car manager.  In all reality it is great to have technology that allows us to keep our processes in the dealership simpler and allow for a faster turnaround time.  When it comes to managing used car sales for multiple dealerships there might still be a need for the used car manager because the duties change.

What do you think of this?  Has the time come for used car managers to be extinct?  Please share your thoughts...

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