Customer Solution Case Study
/ / Leading Car Dealership Achieves Savings with Sales and Delivery Process Optimisation
Overview
Country or Region: The Netherlands
Industry: Automotive
Customer Profile
Autodrome is a major vehicle dealership in the North of the Netherlands. It operates at six locations, sells 12 vehicle brands, and employs 300 people.
Business Situation
The company wanted to replace manual processes and provide tools for viewing sales information for all vehicle brands and outlets in real time.
Solution
Autodrome deployed a new Microsoft-based RPMcar BackOffice solution to streamline sales and delivery processes. The solution gives employees real-time management information across the business.
Benefits
n Tools to help salespeople meet their targets.
n Streamlined processes deliver significant savings.
n Managers use real time information to make the best management decisions.
n Enhanced communication with customers.
n Time savings reduce staffing requirements. / “We now deliver cars to customers much faster than before. Because we sell up to 10,000 cars a year, we have significantly reduced our interest payments to manufacturers.”
Andre Annen, ICT Manager, Autodrome
Autodrome, one of the Netherlands’ leading automotive dealers, wanted to automate costly manual processes and streamline reporting. To achieve this, it deployed a comprehensive dealership reporting, analytics and dash boarding solution from Microsoft® Certified Partner RPMcar. Based on the latest Microsoft technologies, this gives salespeople a clear view of each car’s status and provides a structured approach to sales and delivery processes. Managers can see if salespeople and outlets are meeting their targets in real time and take effective steps to address inefficiency across the business. While sales information across 12 car brands was previously updated manually, this process is now fully automated. As a result, Autodrome has reduced staffing costs. Cars can also be sold and delivered to customers more quickly, reducing interest payments to car manufacturers significantly.
Situation
Vehicle dealerships operate in a low-margin market, requiring them to optimise business processes and maximise operational efficiency. With ever diminishing loyalty among consumers, dealerships compete on price and on the quality of their customer service.
In the face of these challenges, leading Dutch dealership Autodrome is using the latest technologies to streamline its operations. The company, which sells 12 brands of cars and commercial vehicles from six locations in the North of the Netherlands, also offers vehicle repairs and fleet rental services.
“Our varied operations previously depended on a range of manual processes,” says Andre Annen, ICT Manager at Autodrome. “We had 12 spreadsheets to show sales by brand, and these had to be updated by sales people manually to reflect the location and status of every car across the company.”
Managers could not be sure that information on vehicles was up to date, affecting their ability to plan and build sales reports effectively. It was also difficult to understand sales figures by brand, region and outlet, reducing visibility of overall group performance.
“We couldn’t always communicate effectively with our customers,” says Annen. “If a car arrived late from a manufacturer, it was difficult to see what had happened and we sometimes failed to let clients know in time. This had a negative impact on the customer experience and on our corporate reputation.”
Historically, it took Autodrome several days from the moment a new car came into the dealership until it was delivered to the customer.
Simply because there was no insight into when a car would come in, it was impossible to prepare the work that needs to be done in order to make the car ready for customer delivery. With sales of 10,000 cars each year, this resulted in high interest payments to manufacturers, negatively impacting on the company’s bottom line.
“By automating key sales and financial management processes, and increasing visibility of vehicles across the business, we hoped to reduce customer delivery times and make savings on interest payments. The ability to maximise efficiency is a key differentiator for us in this highly competitive marketplace.”
Solution
To address its operational challenges, Autodrome decided to deploy RPMcar BackOffice, a reporting, analytics and dashboarding tool that optimizes the car sales and delivery process and gives insight into what is happening in the dealership. The RPMcar BackOffice solution is based on the latest Microsoft® technologies, including Microsoft Windows Server™ 2003, Microsoft SQL Server™ 2005, and the 2007 Microsoft Office system.
“Traditionally, automotive retail solutions are UNIX based and we see a lot of ’green screens’,” says Sandra van Leeuwen, Strategic Alliance Manager at RPMcar. “We saw a huge opportunity to build new, intuitive tools based on familiar and easy to use Microsoft technology and applications.”
RPMcar connects, integrates and unifies information from a range of back-end systems, such as dealer management systems, car configuration tools, financial management software, and CRM systems, and stores all data relating to cars and customers in a single location.
It provides tailored information dashboards to personnel across sales, central sales administration, management, and other key functions, through an intuitive user interface.
“The technology hides the complexity of back-end systems, providing useful, relevant, role-based information that employees need on a day-to-day basis,” says van Leeuwen. “Key information and tasks are presented to the right people at the right time, and that all processes are conducted to the highest possible standards.”
RPMcar in Action
Employees in different roles now have a customised view of key tasks and business information in RPMcar. This helps administrators, sales managers, workshop managers and other executives work and plan more effectively and make the best possible business decisions.
For sales people, the system provides defined sales processes based on automated workflows. When a car is delivered from the manufacturer, the system alerts the salesperson and provides a list of tasks that need to be carried out.
“The technology gives salespeople more control over the sales process and helps them work more effectively based on pre-defined best practices,” says van Leeuwen. “They can also communicate with customers in a pro-active way, informing them quickly if deliveries are likely to be delayed.”
Financial controllers use the system to see the status of payments and bonuses, and to report on group-wide performance in real time. In addition, executives can see if outlets are meeting targets and achieving the required levels of profitability.
Fast, Low-Impact Deployment
RPMcar was deployed at Autodrome in December 2005 with minimal disruption to normal business operations. Since that time, the system has experienced only five hours of planned downtime to install new software updates. Employees required minimal training to start working with the system, which is now used daily by 150 of the company’s 300 people.
Benefits
Autodrome employees have used RPMcar to eliminate manual administration, cut delivery times for customers, and enhance management decision making. Reduced interest payments to car manufacturers and reduced headcount deliver significant savings across the business.
Enhanced Employee Collaboration
Previously, Autodrome employees communicated using telephone calls and e-mails. Salespeople and managers could also refer to spreadsheets to see sales by brand or car status, but information was not always up to date.
“Now, we have full visibility across our internal sales, pre-sales, sales, and after-sales processes,” says Annen. “This means we can report effectively on our performance, see the status of cars, and contact customers quickly in the event of a delay. This reduces time previously spent on sending e-mails and making phone calls and ensures that we all work together in the most effective way possible.”
Support for Meeting Sales Targets
Using RPMcar, managers can set targets for salespeople. “We can see how many vehicles each employee has sold and use this information to set targets and pay bonuses,” says Annen.
“We can also see where salespeople are struggling to meet targets and offer them additional support where necessary.”
This is possible because data relating to sales across 12 vehicle brands is now held in a single database. “Previously, we couldn’t look at sales in a single location, making it difficult to set targets and report effectively on employees’ performance,” says Annen. “With RPMcar, this is no longer a problem.”
Cars Delivered to Customers Faster, Delivering Significant Savings
Using RPMcar, Autodrome managers can see when cars arrive at dealerships. Vehicles can then be configured quickly in line with customer requirements and delivered up to three days faster than was previously possible.
“We now deliver cars to customers much faster than before,” says Annen. “Because we sell up to 10,000 cars a year, we have significantly reduced our interest payments to manufacturers.”
Business Decisions based on Current, Accurate Information
Autodrome now has a single interface for managing sales across its six locations and 12 car brands. “Instead of looking at 12 spreadsheets, we now get all the management information we need from a single interface,” says Annen. “As a result, our performance no longer depends on people’s interpretation of data. Instead, we make decisions based on hard facts.”
Excellent Customer Service
Now, salespeople can inform customers when their cars arrive from manufacturers and when they can be configured and delivered. If there are changes to the schedule, customers are informed in good time.
“Our customers are obviously not aware that we use RPMcar,” says Annen. “But they can see that our processes are very efficient, and that we offer very high levels of pre-sales and post-sales service. This encourages them to come back to us for their cars and repair needs time after time.”
Process Automation Reduces Staffing Costs
When salespeople sell cars quickly, they receive bonuses. These are calculated automatically in RPMcar delivering significant time savings for administrators. “Previously, we had to compile sales lists and calculate bonuses every week, requiring a significant administrative effort. We are now conducting the same processes with four people where we used to need seven.”
In addition, salespeople can sell more cars with much less administrative effort, supporting business growth with no increase in headcount. “We have the same number of salespeople now that we have always had, but they are selling far more cars,” says Annen.
Additional time savings have also reduced workloads in the sales administration team. In addition, workshop employees are using RPMcar to plan their time more effectively, completing more repairs with no need for additional recruitment.
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