Excellon powers Mahindra Two Wheeler Ltd.

s
IT transformation journey
Two wheelers are big business in India, a mode of
transportation for a signicant percentage of the population.
In fact, the country is one of the largest two wheeler
manufacturers in the world, with sales for both domestic
consumption and export.
Mahindra Two Wheeler Ltd. (MTWL), a fairly new entrant in the
two wheeler manufacturing sector, began operations in 2008.
The company has been working to build a name and create
a strong dealer network and consumer base. In an intensely
competitive sector, the new player on the block was looking
for ways to differentiate itself from competitors not just by its
product offerings, but also in the way it handles its internal and
dealer networks.
At a time when other vehicle manufacturers were showing
at or negative growth rates, the two wheeler industry was
still able to show growth. Yet, two wheeler dealers are not as
mature or established as four wheeler dealers, and the ability
to deliver something different or new to the customers is
extremely important to gain a competitive edge. Curtailing of
costs is another major driver in the two wheeler sector, where
basic revenue comes not from the sales of vehicles but from
the services.
To attain this, MTWLs top management zeroed in on
implementing a cutting edge IT solution that would allow the
company to move ahead at the desired pace and transform
the business, with a focus on quality and the customer.
Quality products and customer satisfaction and delight have
always been at the forefront of the Mahindra brand. Cost
effectiveness, revenue increase and establishing connect with
customers were the key outcomes that MTWL expected from
its IT transformation journey.
IT transformation journey 2
The Customer Need
MTWL dealers had their own
conventional methods and as a
result, effective online collaboration
and consolidation was the need of the
hour. With cost efciencies and increased
productivity a necessity to thrive in the industry, the
effective collaboration and consolidation across diversied
dealer networks demanded a way of standardizing processes across dealers and
corresponding connects within various functions. Hence, there were challenges
to facilitate customer vehicle service requests in a timely manner.
The lack of clarity on stock levels, enquiries, bookings, retail and dispatch owing
to manual processes led to hardship in terms of timely information and stocking
policies. Lastly, the company had limited control and governance on what dealers
were quoting to end-customers as service and ex-showroom prices, resulting in
loss of revenue.
The system driven approach would enhance customer satisfaction and improve
the quality and quantity of analytics available to MTWL. Specically, pre-sales,
actual sales, pre-warranty, actual warranty information would become visible;
customer feedback and dealer interactions could be captured and measured.
Customer engagement and focus would be enhanced with a single system. Also,
unifying all dealerships under one common umbrella would eliminate leakage of
revenues and help to tighten the overall operations of the business.
Why Excellon
MTWL chose Excellon for the engagement over some very large companies
because of Excellons reputation as an innovations leader in providing Dealer
Management System (DMS) and its ability to provide the requisite infrastructure
and components right out of the box. Furthermore, there would be low capital
investment required for Excellons cloud-based solution - Excellon 5. Excellon 5
is highly scalable without compromising on performance and has the ability to
provide real time data and analytics for better decision making.
Excellons team of knowledgeable experts and consultants used a planned and
professional approach to deliver the solution. To ensure a streamlined, consistent
and predictable solution, they relied on tried and tested templates and
methodology when conducting the pilot. The use of pre-dened implementation,
integration and roll-out templates and proven processes helped save time, a
critical factor in this time-sensitive engagement. The Excellon suite also comes
with a powerful integration engine, helpful for optimizing efciency during the
entire process.
Overall, Excellons ability to provide an end to end solution that catered to all the
critical business requirements that MTWL had, made it a perfect choice to lead
MTWLs transformation journey.
MTWL chose Excellon for the
engagement over some very
large companies because of
Excellons reputation as an
innovations leader in providing
Dealer Management System
(DMS) and its ability to provide
the requisite infrastructure
and components right out of
the box.
IT transformation journey 3
Single Team Approach
Eschewing the typical client-vendor
model, Excellon and MTWL decided
to engage in a full-scale partnership
to get the time sensitive project done in
the stipulated framework. The two companies
worked as one unit, collaborating right from the
beginning to ensure that timelines were met and the sharing
of information and access was smooth. Their teams helped each other out on
every step of the transformation journey.
Attention to Detail
From the beginning, Excellon took the time to engage with the customer deeply,
holding month-long closed-door sessions with representatives across the
various functions at MTWL. Meeting with top management, business leaders,
SAP experts, integration experts, and IT team, Excellon strove to understand the
business objectives, expected results and the overall goals of the transformation
exercise in order to deliver the best results possible.
Excellons team worked closely with MTWLs IT and business teams to create
detailed documentation, including business case and business requirements,
and also provided the client with a comprehensive document containing both
high level and detailed guidance on the implementation. Moreover, Excellon
5 had to be integrated with the existing SAP infrastructure to ensure smooth
functionality.
Teams comprising both Excellon and MTWL members worked out of the
dealerships to understand that side of the business and take care of issues that
might develop, enabling a holistic approach.
Says, Ashok Asawale, VP -
Business Process Management
Corporate at Mahindra and
Mahindra, we emphasized
concurrent thinking, never an
us versus them mentality,
and the partnership yielded a
lot of learning for both sides
we developed and grew
together. This convergence in
thinking and doing is what got
the job done on time, and to
everyones satisfaction.
IT transformation journey 4
What Excellon 5 Delivered
MTWL is the rst company in the
Mahindra group to get on the cloud,
making the organization a pioneer with
the best DMS solution on hand - Excellon
5. In addition, its centralized database,
development of reports within the solution, and
ability to check actual system usage meant that Excellon 5
provided all the elements that MTWL needed for its business. The company
has greatly improved customer satisfaction, thanks to real-time and quality
information at its disposal. The DMS provided MTWL with the ability to analyze
customer interactions and data at regional levels and reconcile differences. It
also offers access to real time, accurate data, which allows MTWL to plan and
build future strategy. As a result of the implantation, all the dealers were united
under the MTWL brand umbrella. Excellons implementation strategies ensured
quick deployment time, fast adaption and minimal cost pressures for MTWL.
The DMS installation helped MTWL in the following ways:
Provided savings of Rs. 12 lakhs per year for the dealers, by eliminating
manual processes, cutting costs on paper, courier services and
communication.
Increased visibility of data and its availability in real-time allowed MTWL to
Better monitor enquiries, bookings, shipments, dealer interactions,
and customer feedback closely, leading to peak efciency levels, and
therefore higher revenues, by aligning the launch of new models with
this system
Increase uniformity across sales operations as all dealer transactions
related to sales and vehicles are now conducted via the system
Access in real-time the details on secondary sales, customers and walk-
in data instead of with the two-day delay that was customary prior to the
implementation
Resolve vehicle service problems faster due to easier access to global
vehicle history
Better monitor performance at the dealer, city, regional ofce and zonal
ofce levels thanks to complete visibility into stock, enquiry, retail,
booking and dispatch. With better dealer data, the company also has
access to dealer level manpower status, attrition data, and training
needs
Ensure tighter control on unit pricing. MTWL can now analyze sales lost
to competitors and use the data to inform its sales strategy.
Reduced turnaround time to ve days for settlement of warranty claims, free
service coupons and goodwill settlements.
Improved sales person productivity and the conversion ratio.
As a result of the initial success of the implementation, additional parameters
were added and more is expected from the transformation than originally thought
of or planned on. The goals have been expanded to include the new models
being launched in the market. MTWL expects its investment in Excellon 5 to pay
for itself, with the company currently working on process improvements to
recover the costs.
End-to-end services provided by
Excellon
1. Project Kickoff
2. Discovery and Requirements
Analysis
3. Conguration and customization
4. Integration with SAP or other
systems
5. User Acceptance
6. Pilot Deployment
7. Nationwide Training and Rollout
8. Post Deployment Support
9. Long term maintenance
Excellons end-to-end services
using subscription model covered
hosting, secure access, data
security, management and
monitoring, end user support,
application maintenance, and all
the needed platform licenses,
taking the worry out of the process
for MTWL.
IT transformation journey 5
Where Excellon Excelled
Excellon not just met, but surpassed
client expectations by ably executing
the complex business transformation.
Excellon was able to handle, with ease,
the inherent challenges in implementing the
solution across a wide geographical area. Time was
of the essence, with MTWLs stated expectation of having 50
dealers onboard within six months of giving the go ahead on the project. This
was an ambitious target, and Excellon delivered even faster than the stipulated
timeframe. By the end of year one, all the dealers in the MTWL network were
online and the company achieved 99% conversion thanks in part, to strong
dealer buy-in for this transformation journey.
As a result of the Excellon and MTWL partnership, both sides benetted greatly.
MTWL went on to win the EDGE - Enterprises Driving Growth and Excellence
(using IT) award from InformationWeek. Indeed, the results of the Excellon 5
implementation exemplify what the EDGE award stands for, including complexity
of the project and the business benets achieved as a result of the technology.
In addition Excellon was also awarded Most Promising New Product Information
Technology and Best Innovative Project of the Year by World Innovation
Congress.
Overall, MTWL has experienced signicant cost savings as a result of installing
Excellon 5, as well as increased revenues. The transformation journey has been
a resounding success for MTWL and is an example of what forward thinking,
a sound solution, and a close partnership between the client and vendor can
achieve.
About Excellon Software
Excellon Software is a renowned software product company known for its cutting-
edge yet simple-to-use sales, distribution, and service management software.
The companys award winning product portfolio encompasses a complete
dealer management system, sales and distribution management, and service
management software. It offers unmatched exibility in deployment, functionality
and reporting.
With a large team of professionals comprising business, functional, and
technical specialists, Excellon Software offers an end-to-end solution right from
requirement analysis, customization, training and rollouts, to support large
sales & service networks. Excellons applications are used by large and small
manufacturers, franchisors, dealers, distributors and service centres.
Contact
EXCELLON Software Private Limited
Plot No. 14 / IV, Third Floor,
I.T. Park Parsodi, South Ambazari Road
Nagpur - 440 022
INDIA
For further information, please contact:
sales@excellonsoft.com
We are very pleased with the
outcome of the engagement
with Excellon, which has
exceeded our expectations
and given us the llip we were
looking for, not only in terms
of revenues and cost savings,
but also in keeping track of
customer service and providing
an enhanced ownership
experience, which is what the
Mahindra brand is known for
said Dharmendra Mishra
Vice President - Sales &
Customer Care, MTWL.