As one of the fastest growing companies in the heavy commercial
vehicle
segment, Asia Motor Works (AMW) faces heavy competition from
well-established players in the market. As an upstart, the
company
relies on innovation to compete with the majors.
Unlike manufacturing companies that manufacture their own
components, the company sources components from suppliers such
as
Cummins, Valeo and Meritor. This innovation, when coupled with
the
company’s engineering skills, helps the company reduce the
time to
market and lower the cost of making trucks.
To provide appropriate service to the end customer, the firm has a
network of over 35 dealers and 130 service centers across
India.
Being a relatively new entrant when compared to majors such as
the
Tatas, the company wanted its field force to be more productive
and
equipped with updated information to serve the customer better.
The
company’s biggest challenge—the field force received
information
through e-mails.
“In the absence of access to updated information, our field
force
had to telephone the respective departments to ask for details
regarding the stock availability of a particular model or the
status of
an order or the outstanding bill status for a particular dealer.
This
had a direct impact on the productivity,” explains Umesh
Mehta, CIO,
Asia Motor Works.
To make sure that its field force could access or receive
relevant
information on-the-go, the firm needed a mobile solution. While
the
firm had a choice of giving its field force smart phones or
BlackBerry’s, it decided that it needed a solution that could
work
across all mobile phones. Accordingly, in the first quarter of
2009,
Mehta’s team started work on developing a solution that could
push and
pull information from ERP using a simple SMS.
SMS pulls and pushes diverse corporate
information
The timing too was apt as the market was caught in the throes of
a
recession. The company used the available time in its IT team
to
develop the mobile application. In a period of just three months,
the
IT team developed an application that allows the field force to
pull
information by sending an SMS from a normal mobile phone.
Using predefined keywords, a person in the field force can send
a
request for information, and receive an update through a return
SMS.
For example, an area sales manager can send a keyword OST
(Outstanding)
followed by a dealer code, to receive information pertaining to
dealer
accounts receivables.
“Based on user requirements, we have defined over 20 keywords
that
allow employees to receive information related to sales,
production,
leads, inventory details, outstanding collections or availability
of a
particular model,” declares Mehta.
The firm has used the same platform to even push information in
the
form of information capsules as per the defined schedule. Every
morning, before the start of a business day, employees who have
subscribed to a particular alert (say production, sales,
collection,
outstanding, shipment notification for trucks and spare parts,
inventory levels) receive this information via SMS. This facility
has
also been extended to dealers. As soon as an order is
processed,
dealers receive updates about their order via SMS.
Transformed Field Force
Today, thanks to the ready access to information, the firm has
been
able to empower and transform its field force. As the field force
has
accurate information according to different parameters, it has
helped
the executives on the field to improve the quality of their
service.
The results in the initial six month period show the potential of
this
solution. Productivity has improved by over 25 percent and
collections
have already improved by 20 percent, while follow-up calls to
departments are almost non-existent now.
Working around constraints is part of every Indian company’s
DNA.
This trait is clearly seen in the case of AMW, which has avoided
using
expensive smart phones, but instead has used the power of a simple
SMS
to radically re-engineer its business process.