London and Redwood Shores July 9, 2001 SeeBeyond today announced that quattro GmbH, a subsidiary of auto manufacturer Audi, has successfully implemented the eBI (eBusiness Integration) platform from SeeBeyond to facilitate the streamlining of its supply chain across core logistics, customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems.
A key trend in the automotive industry is not just to sell the vehicle, but also to acquire the customer, provide superior service and then build and leverage the relationship and brand across a wider range of products. It is then essential to provide the same level of service with the complementary products to reinforce the brand. To optimize the profitability of this complementary channel, it is critical to efficiently manage the supply chain across marketing, sales and distribution.
quattro enables extensive personalization of its vehicles with an equipment and accessory program, which is complemented by the Audi collection the latest collection of luggage, leather gear, watches sunglasses and high-tech bikes. Customers access a catalog to find out what is offered and order items from their local dealer. To provide the best possible support and service, quattro works with an external service provider as well as logistics partners whose call centers can also be used for placing orders. The service provider uses the BVD system with an interface to the SAP R/3 Retail system, to enter all relevant data for customer orders and logistics. The BVD system delivers information on newly entered customers, incoming goods from logistics, invoices for consignments of goods to customers, outgoing goods for AUDI AG cost centers and return receipts from the distribution channels. The R/3 system is also able to deliver updated or new records for customer-, item- and supplier- master data and notifications to the service providers' systems.
"SeeBeyond solutions allow quattro to streamline its supply chain and CRM operations to deliver enhanced operational and customer service levels," said David Bennett, vice president and general manager of EMEA for SeeBeyond. "As one of our key vertical markets, automotive is an ideal industry to demonstrate how optimized business process management is essential for seamlessly connecting the customer to the manufacturer, and the suppliers to the logistics providers.
