ETL Solutions are helping to improve customer service by integrating dealer networks...
Automotive manufacturing is an intensely competitive global industry where manufacturers continually strive to balance cost reduction and efficiency improvements with increased sales and service innovations through their dealer network.
Integrating their dealer network seems simple enough – in theory at least – but the reality is different. In fact, achieving a seamless flow of data between a manufacturer and its dealers is a major problem that can have a big impact on the success of any customer service initiative.
The reason is that dealers tend to use different Dealer Management Systems
(DMS) to run their business and each DMS supplier has a different approach to data integration. Some only make data available as a file extract or reports whilst others provide an interface which allows development of customised software.
Each DMS also has unique and sometimes arcane data structures and this adds to the complexity of accessing, aggregating, replicating, converting and using the data. Even within a DMS different versions are sometimes incompatible.
Some manufacturers have tried to solve this problem themselves by writing data extraction programs or by having dealers send extracts of their data as a flat file or a spreadsheet, but these are all largely ineffective, time-consuming, labour-intensive, prone to data quality and accuracy errors and just too expensive.
Honda UK had tried for many years to integrate their 200 dealer network but faced the familiar problem of different and incompatible DMS. They now use Datahub Automotive and this solves their problem and enables new DMS to be added quickly and simply.
Datahub Automotive is a new approach that extracts data directly from multiple, diverse DMS via the internet. Data is then aggregated, replicated, converted and loaded into a target data store before being transmitted to its destination. Once established, Datahub Automotive operates automatically through a central configuration management facility that manages any changes in functionality, maintenance routines or software updates.
This ability to access and interpret data enables a manufacturer to develop targeted customer service programmes based on accurate data. The results are impressive and include supply chain efficiencies and reported revenue growth through better dealer management.