Dealers adjusting models as OEMs shift strategies

Dealership business models continued to evolve in 2025 as OEMs centralized digital infrastructure, investing heavily in dealer enablement and M&A, and worked with dealers to transform their strategies rather than replace them. 

Most OEMs are pursuing major changes from their dealer partners by centralizing e-commerce and product sales and support infrastructure, Nate Savona, a partner in Oliver Wyman’s Transportation and Advanced Industrials practice, told Equipment Finance News. As a result, dealers can handle transactions digitally without building complex online capabilities. 

“Every OEM has taken a slightly different position on that, but by and large, those dealers are here to stay, and I don’t think you’re going to see OEMs go buy out their dealer channel or stand up a completely competing channel,” he said. “They’re going to pick their spots to win, and mostly that’s going to be transforming with their dealers.” 

The dealer channel remains firmly in place, but after years of disruption that began in 2008, the industry is seeing up to 15 business models in use, Michael Sharov, also a partner in Oliver Wyman’s Transportation and Advanced Industrials practice, told EFN. 

“Dealers are going to change radically, both through their own survival mechanisms and through what the OEMs are doing,” he said. “Private equity has rediscovered the taste for this area, and they’ve rediscovered the taste for both working with OEMs, because OEMs a lot of times need help reconfiguring their own go-to-market channels, and directly with dealers.” 

Additionally, OEMs are focusing on enablement, with 61% of executives reporting investments in tools, training, footprint expansion and dealer M&A support, according to Oliver Wyman’s 2025 State of Industrial Goods North America, Non-Road report, released on Dec. 3. The report surveyed 105 equipment manufacturer executives in a joint effort with the Association of Equipment Manufacturers. 

OEMs moving closer to dealers, customers 

While some dealers are large and even publicly owned, many are smaller, family-owned businesses that are facing faster-paced and more significant changes in OEM relationships than ever, Savona said. 

“There’s no secret OEMs are trying to get closer to the customer; they just are, and that’s almost ubiquitous across the board. However, each OEM might have a different strategy.” — Nate Savona, transportation and advanced industrials partner, Oliver Wyman

OEMs remain split between strategies that favor consolidation with large, digitally capable dealer groups and those that prioritize maintaining smaller, locally focused ones with close customer relationships, Savona said. 

“Each of them is asking those dealers to do things differently, and so that’s where there’s constant change,” he said. “Most of these OEMs are not looking to blow up their dealer model, but they are looking to change it and change it in a big way.” 

Meanwhile, large fleets are increasingly using OEM-connected vehicles alongside dedicated dealer service teams to proactively manage downtime by identifying and addressing potential failures before operators are even aware of an issue, Jim Ledsome, general manager of The Pete Store’s Mid-Atlantic region, told EFN. 

“When you’re working backward, and they call you because their truck is sitting at the shop and … all the other things that come with downtime, that’s not good,” he said. “From the dealership side, we’ve embraced that the connected truck is giving us a competitive advantage over people that don’t utilize the systems yet.” 

Check out our exclusive industry data here.