Spirit Motor Group
The OHM Group, one of Ireland's
leading car distribution groups
have been using the ADP Autoline
dealer management system since
the late 1980's. The OHM Group
import Jaguar, Saab, SEAT,
Chrysler, Jeep, Dodge, Daihatsu,
Cadillac and Corvette, distributing
to 100 dealerships in Ireland. In
addition, the OHM Group own and
manage a number of multi-brand
retail dealerships in Dublin,
including Spirit Motor Group in
Sandyford Business Park.
Background
Spirit Motor Group is a premier dealership in south Dublin for Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo. They have operated for over 10 years using Autoline revision 7 before upgrading to revision 8. Spirit's decision to upgrade was ultimately based on the strengths and capabilities of a number of Autoline's key modules including Showroom, CRM (formerly Marketing) and Accounts. We spoke to Gerard O'Farrell, OHM Group Director and Managing Director of Spirit Motor Group about their upgrade and use of Autoline within their business.
Showroom Module
"The CRM and Showroom modules were key to the decision to go forward with the upgrade from revision 7 to revision 8. Moving from a single franchise to multiple franchises necessitated catering for up to 25 different model lines in three different showrooms with around 10-12 sales people. The key was to deliver a consistently high standard and to formalise the sales process for quotations and recording of customer details and information," commented Gerard.
Aftersales
Spirits after sales department is based in Sandyford, at a separate location. This is an extremely busy department with around 4,500 service jobs per year. It is important that the back office system can handle this volume of work. Autoline's integrated platform and back office system allows ease of communication between the two locations and the level of interaction allows access to key information for the sales department, such as a vehicles full service history. All the sales team in the showroom have full access to the history of any cars that are serviced so when appraising a potential trade-in, the sales person has all of the information available. Autoline facilitates the recording of information and extra notes can be made for example, if new tyres were needed or a bumper was replaced.
CRM Module - A change in mindset
A change in mindset was prevalent in the decision to implement the CRM module. Spirit is dedicated to providing customers with nothing less than the very best. Prior to the upgrade, campaigns would have begun with the vehicle. Now with Autoline revision 8, campaigns are built around the customers needs, using information which is stored in the system. "The CRM marketing module ensures the focus remains on the customer", explains Gerard. "CRM is central to all departments and extremely relevant from a sales management perspective. With over 10,000 customers on our database, it was necessary to have a system that could handle this information quickly and effectively". It is of critical importance for all the franchises that the data is kept up-to-date. In the past, each office was required to manually enter the data but standard Autoline features allows the data to automatically update and other external links are available. Changes were also made to the sales process, which reduces double entry and the rewriting of orders.
Seamless Integration
The ability for vertical integration with third party and manufacturers systems is a key element of Autoline. Take a Jaguar order for example, the system enables Spirit to connect with Jaguar's vehicle tracking and factory ordering system and allows the updating and population of Autoline prior to vehicle invoicing, facilitating seamless integration.
Accounts
"When planning the upgrade to revision 8, ADP strongly advised adoption of the Standard Chart of Accounts. While revision 7 had the ability to deal with most of Spirit's requirements, the idea was to 'start fresh'", Gerard comments, "This enabled us to structure our analysis codes and ensure consistency across all brands."
The key objective was to set up and implement the system in a way that would facilitate the use of the drill-down facility for complete analysis of information given any parameters, for example, by franchise or by model line within a franchise, by sales person, by model or vehicle or even by total business by franchise or department. Gerard continues, "The whole accounting set up is based on being able to analyse and drill-down to these levels. Revision 8's intuitive structure gave us the ability to that in a user friendly way". The decision to adopt the Standard Chart of Accounts from the outset was essential to achieving this.
As Spirit were already a user of Autoline, they had the benefit of experience of implementing the system. When they implemented revision 7 they realised that they didn't place enough emphasis on ongoing personnel training. They knew to approach training in a different way during the migration to revision 8. They set up a systematic training schedule with up-front courses and then added continuous refresher courses. This proved very effective.
Workshop Loading
Workshop Loading allows the optimum allocation of labour resources where they are needed the most. According to Gerard, parts and service is the absolute backbone to operations, so Workshop Loading was a module that Spirit were keen to bring on board. In the multibrand environment that Spirit operates, where everyone is working in the one workshop, it is necessary to ensure that the focus of attention is where it is needed the most. The introduction of the Workshop Loading module assisted greatly.
Report Generator
Having set up modules to run accurate and detailed reports for their own use, revision 8 enables Spirit to analyse and identify key variances on a department by department basis. Into the Future Gerard comments "In continuing to exploit the opportunities available to us, we are always looking to improve the information flow and to meet the increasing expectations of our customers for a first class level of customer service. We look forward to continuing our excellent relationship with ADP as we grow our business into the future."