With around 10,000 vehicles under its control, Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. demands a 360-degree view over its operations. Seeking a single platform that could segregate the company’s lines of business, director of IT Alexious Mulemba opted for an industry-specific solution to slash waiting times for customers.
For an organisation that has 10,000 vehicles under its control, it’s not just their speed alone that matters. Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. faces a daily challenge to keep track of the service processes of its dealerships, and keep a timely record of car sales and parts management. Haste and accuracy are crucial in the operation.
Founded in 1958, AAB’s big break came in 1964 when it won the rights to become the Qatar Toyota distributor. The company has continued to distribute the Japanese vehicles for the last 50 years, and has gone on to add Lexus cars to its portfolio, and now offers trade-in services for the two brands as well as car rental services. Around “90 percent” of AAB’s business today revolves around general automobile distribution. The company’s functioning relies largely on heavy equipment operations, with retail operations essential from a customer-facing point of view.
“AAB’s IT department has to act as an internal consultant for these processes,” says Alexious Mulemba, IT director, Abdullah Abdulghani & Bros. “We have to find ways to reduce cost, as well as improving efficiency.”
Mulemba and AAB’s senior management sought an increase in the speed of these processes. Along with other business divisions, the IT department initiated an organisation-wide investigation, and discovered that there were 1,800 business-critical issues that needed improvement. Over time, and with a great deal of work, this number was reduced to 442, but this still represented a large gulf from what AAB wanted. “I sat down with the CEO, and asked ‘are we knocking on the right door?’” Mulemba says. “We looked at ways that we could drastically cut this number, and came up with a few options.”
Chief among these issues was the intake of various data from AAB’s workshop technicians. “The process of their manual hours clocking was inefficient,” Mulemba says. “In our industry, the process of changing spare parts, and keeping track of stock – as well parts that are superseded – is not always efficiently tracked without the right tools.” In addition to the outdated processes that existed at AAB, Mulemba was also conscious that they could lead to a greater risk of fraud. “A new tool would need to provide greater accountability and transparency,” he says.
The IT team concluded that it had the option to customise its existing ERP, or look for an alternative. After exploring the option of updating the ERP in great detail, Mulemba decided it was not a viable option, and that a solution would have to be specific to the automotive industry. “Our previous solution was not industry-specific,” Mulemba says. “As a company that is heavily involved in distribution, it’s very important that we can keep track of container processes, as well as a range of other things. We decided that a ready-made automotive solution was a must.”
Having devised a detailed scoring system to determine the most appropriate solution for AAB, Mulemba and the senior management concluded that SAP’s Dealer Business Management 8.0 was their best option. They had also strongly considered an alternative dealer management solution. “The dealer-specific solution scored very highly on our scale, but could not provide the single platform that we craved,” Mulemba says. “We needed a single platform for non-automotive operations; one that could cover all lines of business.”
One of the key criteria for success in the project would be the delivery of a platform that could cater for scalability across the group structure, being able to accommodate spikes in growth. Mulemba also sought a technology partner who was committed to developing its reach in the automotive industry. “For me, it was important that any vendor we selected was committed to investing in R&D in its automotive solutions,” he says.
Opting for SAP did not come without risk, however. “At the time, the product had not been fully released, and SAP were reluctant to give it to a non-SAP customer,” Mulemba says. “We were happy to take the risk as we were confident of its benefits, and SAP offered to support us in deploying the product.”
The work on the implementation of the solution began in January 2014, and went fully live by 1st April 2015. Although the changes were largely smooth, an effective organisational change management team was established to make sure glitches were avoided. Under AAB’s corporate communications department, the team made sure all employees were well informed of the project, and the ambition of devising a platform to encompass all of AAB’s lines of business, whilst configuring the organiation from single into multiple entries.
Following the completion of the work on the solution, Mulemba has been able to draw huge satisfaction from its impact, and says it has had a dramatic impact on AAB’s operations. “It has solved our key issue of being scalable to the organisation’s needs, allowing us to easily manage our group structure,” he says. Unexpected benefits have also been noticed. “It’s provided us with things we’ve never had before,” Mulemba says. “That’s allowing us to process things faster, which is enabling us to look at issues that were never even discussed.”
In terms of cost, Mulemba believes the initial outlay is justified. “No information technology investments are considered cheap.,” he says. “Therefore, IT should always align its strategies with the business, and work closely together for effective IT and business solutions, to add value to the business and justify such Investments.
“At AAB, we have raised our user expectations to the level of automated processes, that integrate our businesses.”
Crucially, a large percentage of the issues that AAB was facing have been resolved, with most “fully closed”.
The importance of usability is also not lost on Mulemba. “Around 80 percent of the 3,300 employees who use the solution have reported that it is more user-friendly,” he says. “This obviously has a positive impact on morale, which can only be beneficial.”
He has also been satisfied at SAP’s ambition to further its efforts within the automotive industry. “They’ve shown that they’re keen to drive R&D on the product, which is certainly reassuring,” he says.
Recognition for AAB’s project has not stopped at user satisfaction, however. The organisation’s delivery of SAP Dealer Business Management has been internationally acclaimed – as Experience of the Fastest Business Transformation Project in SAP Automotive Retail – scooping SAP’s Gold Award for the Middle East North Africa region, and the bronze award for Europe, Middle East and Africa. “I feel immensely proud with what we’ve been able to achieve,” Mulemba says.
