Tekion Desking

Tekion Desking: Tekion describes its desking tool as the sales and deal-structuring module within its Automotive Retail Cloud, the platform the company markets as covering the functions of a dealer management system plus CRM, service lane technology, analytics, payments, payroll and digital retail. Desking is where a salesperson builds the deal: price, trade, financing and add-on products.

Tekion company profile Tekion official website

Tekion Desking: Dealer management systems (DMS)

According to descriptions of the platform, the module structures deals with built-in pricing logic, lender integrations and side-by-side comparison tools. It handles trade-in valuation, finance structure and F&I product presentation in one workflow.

The point of a single workflow is that a deal is not re-keyed between separate systems.

A related consumer-facing module supports digital retailing, where a shopper structures a deal online, gets a trade valuation and submits a financing application. In the dealership, the same deal can be picked up at the desk.

So the store's process is not split between an online tool and an in-store one.

Auto Success reported a partnership between Market Scan and Tekion for automotive retail desking. Tekion's own pages describe the ARC and AEC platforms.

For Toyota and Lexus dealers in the United States, Tekion has said its desking can accept deals pushed from the SmartPath and MONOGRAM digital retail program, which is an example of a manufacturer program connecting to the desk.

Tekion also runs an Automotive Partner Cloud, described in a Business Wire release as dealer-controlled technology for third-party integrations. It announced dealer group customers such as Hartwell in the United Kingdom.

These releases show the wider platform that desking belongs to.

A general manager comparing desking tools would ask how lender rates and programs are maintained, how incentives from each manufacturer are loaded, how menu presentation and compliance disclosures are handled in the deal, how the deal is handed to the business office and how desking works for a store not using the rest of the Tekion platform.

The category guide for desking and deal structuring lists a neutral checklist that applies to Tekion and to the other providers.

Tekion was founded in 2016 by Jay Vijayan and Guru Sankararaman and is based in Pleasanton, California. Jay Vijayan is a former Tesla executive.

Reports say it raised 150 million dollars in 2020, 250 million in 2021 and 200 million in July 2024.

Business Standard put the July 2024 valuation above 4 billion dollars. Desking is one part of Tekion's Automotive Retail Cloud, which also runs sales, service and accounting.

A dealer would ask how desking changes when the store is not on the Tekion DMS.