Maruti picks up ASP mode to manage dealers

BANGALORE: Maruti Udyog Limited and Wipro Infotech, the Asia Pacific & Middle East IT arm of Wipro Ltd., have collaborated to set up a first-of-its-kind Dealer management System (DMS), which will be implemented in Application Service Providing (ASP) mode for Maruti dealerships across the country.

This system will provide benefits to their dealerships and to customers. Dealerships will have access to updated information from Maruti and a real time view of their operational processes that will help them manage their businesses better. The DMS will issue alerts to dealerships whenever they are falling short of performance norms in various areas such as level of customer complaints handling and sales.

More importantly, it will enable the dealer CEOs to proactively monitor their various Key Performance Indicators to effectively manage their businesses. This would include inventory, sales, inquiries and debts.

The system will assist dealerships in customer retention and help build lasting relationships. As far as customers are concerned, they will benefit from the ‘single face of Maruti’ irrespective of the dealership. This should help raise customer service levels and enhance the quality of management at dealerships.

The DMS is a centralized solution with all dealerships logging onto a Central Data Center where the application will be hosted. The security features will be controlled at the Data Center along with a Disaster Recovery site for backup.

Wipro, as the core IT partner with Maruti, will be responsible for implementation, networking, training and subsequent sustenance of the Dealer Management System. The system, apart from dealer integration with a central database, also serve as a knowledge repository from where dealerships can access information on customer schemes, product features and price lists.

Jagdish Khattar, Managing Director, Maruti Udyog Limited, said: "We are delighted to introduce this new Dealer Management System linking Maruti to its dealerships. Information is a critical input in taking business decisions, and this system uses the latest Information Technology to equip our dealer partners with relevant information at the right time. We are happy that we have Wipro as our partner in this key endeavor".

Azim Premji, Chairman, Wipro Limited, said, "Our thrust at Wipro is to provide technology enabled solutions that make our customers’ business processes more effective and efficient. We are happy to be Maruti Udyog’s IT partner in such a prestigious project."

The DMS is being rolled out in a phased manner across the country. The new system will eventually cover all the 450 dealer business entities of Maruti in India.