IT is seen as an overhead, and as something that doesn't contribute directly to profitability. When compared to dealers, dealers bring in the profit, IT slurps it away.
Sad part is that when it goes wrong it does effect the balance sheet. Even sadder is how they internaly cost IT and do it wrong. Remove the IT and see how many people/time is needed to do the same job and that is the true cost/potentual impact of IT. Sadly though that is never done and only comes to light when things fail and then they blame IT and not the effects of seagul managment, budget cuts etc.
Some similarities to the now defunct Railtrack whose remit was to maintain the UK railways decided that it was a good idea to outsource all of its engineering capability. It turned out that Railtrack did not have the ability to manage, monitor or access the state of work carried out by contractors. Some details and links in... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Railtrack#Founding
A good lesson. Accessing which are the core functions of your company. And the ability to execute them without failure.