For many years, Kodix Automotive operated as a successful web studio. From 2008 to 2017, the company built hundreds of websites for automotive dealerships, establishing relationships with nearly every major car brand in Russia. It was a strong business, but it was fundamentally a project-based services model.
The problem with that model was scale. Winning a new tender meant hiring more developers, more project managers, more support. Each new client required new teams. Growth was linear, and costs were high. On top of that, every site we delivered was built on a third-party CMS, which meant we were paying significant licensing fees for every dealership website.
By 2018, it was clear this model had run its course. Kodix leadership realized we had a chance to transform into a true product company—one that could harness the patterns we had seen across hundreds of dealership sites and deliver them at scale.
The Problems to Solve
When I joined Kodix, my first responsibility was to complete an in-flight project with Yamaha. After its successful delivery, we focused on the company’s bigger strategic problems:
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Time to market was unacceptable. Delivering a full dealership network for a brand could take 18 months or more. That level of effort meant we couldn’t even consider winning another tender until the current one was nearly complete.
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Licensing costs were unsustainable. A large portion of capital expenditures went to third-party CMS licenses.
Our goals were clear:
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Reduce delivery time for a brand’s entire dealership network from 18 months to less than 6 months.
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Replace the third-party CMS with an in-house, outcome-driven platform.
Discovery and Solution
We set out to build a platform purpose-built for automotive. I was responsible for the core of this new platform—what later became known as OnePlatform.
The first challenge was customization. Automotive brands are deeply protective of their identities. Brand guidelines are strict, and both physical dealerships and digital dealerships are expected to reflect them. The platform had to support this level of brand identity and still scale.
I defined our initial viability criteria: the platform must be able to host at least two major brands—each with 50 to 150 dealerships—without breaking. Within the first year, BMW and Nissan were both successfully running on the platform.
The second challenge was usability. Most dealerships didn’t have developers on staff. Often the “web person” was an all-purpose admin with minimal technical skills. To address this, we embraced a no-code approach. Drawing on lessons from the Yamaha project, I catalogued every block type used in automotive sites worldwide. Within 6 months, we launched our MVP—a no-code website builder capable of supporting BMW’s entire dealership network.
Scaling the Platform
With OnePlatform, we reduced dealership network rollout from 18 months to just 3 months. But we still faced scaling bottlenecks.
Historically, project managers handled nearly everything: site structure, SEO, integrations, analytics, content. In the new model, we had no project managers. Initially, I personally carried the workload for the first two brands, but this wasn’t sustainable.
We introduced two key changes:
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PLA (Platform Adoption) Teams – temporary, project-based teams embedded with each brand. Their mission was to help networks adopt the platform, tailoring it to unique brand needs while staying within the “rails” of the product.
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Customer Support as No-Code Creators – we invested in onboarding and training programs to transform support staff into no-code builders. They became the bridge between dealerships and the platform.
To address value risk, I overhauled our discovery process. We started running A/B tests, focus groups, and in-depth interviews. I restructured the core of the platform into four products:
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No-Code Builder
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Horizontal Backend Solutions
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Content Management System
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Marketplace
The Marketplace was especially strategic. It allowed us to add value without adding legacy to the core platform. Third-party apps could be integrated and monetized separately. This gave dealerships the freedom to test features, pay only for what mattered, and discard what didn’t. It opened the door to exponential growth.
Results
Over 2.5 years, Kodix transformed from a project services company to a true product company.
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OnePlatform captured 20% market share in Russia, onboarding most of the top 10 automotive brands.
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The product reached breakeven and became profitable.
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During the pandemic, BMW Group recognized OnePlatform as an unprecedented solution for end-to-end online car sales, helping the industry adapt in a time of crisis.
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Eventually, Kodix Automotive was acquired by external investors and integrated into UDP (United Dealership Platform), following the same vision as Cox Automotive Group.
Lessons Learned
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Project models don’t scale. Each new client requires new teams. Products scale because they harness patterns.
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Viability criteria matter. Defining the minimum bar for success (two brands coexisting on the same platform) kept us focused on solving the right problem.
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No-code was not a nice-to-have, it was essential. Without it, adoption at the dealership level would have failed.
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Marketplaces extend value without bloating the core. This decision was critical for long-term sustainability.
OnePlatform was more than a technology shift—it was an organizational and business model transformation. And in the process, it showed how an industry rooted in traditional practices could embrace modern product thinking and achieve exponential results.