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Everyone has visited a car dealership, yet almost nobody understands the underlying economics. The actual margin on selling a vehicle remains thin; dealerships actually make their money through servicing, parts, and financing. Janessa Kuek operates AG Autoworld, a massive Johor-based Proton 4S dealer group and part of her family's larger enterprise. Under her second-generation leadership, the group recently swept eight major awards at Proton's global conference, securing the PROTON CEO Award and officially cementing its position as Malaysia's highest-volume dealer group.

But the traditional auto retail model is currently colliding with a technological shift. Proton’s e.MAS brand now dominates the Malaysian electric vehicle market, capturing over sixty percent of national EV registrations this year. Because EVs require fundamentally less mechanical maintenance, the lucrative aftersales engine is disappearing. To combat this structural threat, Janessa pivoted her strategy to build an ecosystem around the buyer, launching comprehensive lifetime membership clubs and opening the first Proton e.MAS showroom inside a shopping mall to drive alternative value.

Janessa joins us to unpack the hidden financial mechanics of a high-volume automotive dealership. We discuss exactly how a second-generation leader reshapes a family business, and what actually happens to a dealership's bottom line when the internal combustion engine disappears.