A Leading Provider of Automotive Parts transitions to a digital-first business model with an optimized ERP system and a streamlined, high-performance sales platform.
A global leader in automotive parts manufacturing faced a critical challenge: the performance and scalability of their ERP system and traditional sales methods were hindering their growth due to system and application bottlenecks. Dealers and suppliers had to rely on manual sales or Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) processes, leading to inefficiencies, slow response times, and customer dissatisfaction.
To stay competitive, the automotive supplier needed to transition to a digital-first approach, allowing their partners to place orders online and streamline the entire ordering process.
As the company’s operations grew, so did the strain on their existing systems. The sales order process, a critical part of their business, was particularly problematic. The old system’s response times were painfully slow, with each sales order taking up to several minutes from the moment a customer clicked “Place Order.” Under heavy load, the web orders would often time out. This created bottlenecks for dealers and suppliers, many of whom were forced to abandon the process altogether in frustration.
With these challenges impacting both revenue and customer satisfaction, the automotive supplier knew they needed a partner who could not only address these issues but also further scale their systems to provide the headroom needed for growth and scalability. That’s when they turned to the Buchanan Applications Optimization team for a complete overhaul of their digital ordering system.
We began by conducting a comprehensive review of the client’s sales order system and business processes, identifying key bottlenecks in performance and scalability. It became clear that their existing architecture couldn’t support the kind of rapid, real-time service their customers expected. The team recommended a full optimization of the sales order processing system, leveraging the power of the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) to improve scalability and performance.
Our experts focused on re-engineering the entire sales order process, refactoring inefficient application code, utilizing in-memory, multi-threading, and bulk processing methods. These optimizations would not only improve response times but also facilitate the ability to handle a much higher volume of orders without overloading the system.
The results were profound. Through our optimizations, we reduced sales order processing times from several minutes to sub-seconds. This improvement didn’t just enhance the user experience; it also allowed them to increase their order capacity by 20X without needing additional resources. Dealers and suppliers could now place more orders quickly thereby significantly boosting the company’s revenue potential.
With their new digital sales platform in place, the auto parts supplier has gained a competitive edge in the automotive parts industry. The increased capacity, faster order processing, and seamless customer experience have enabled the company to capture new market opportunities and maintain strong relationships with dealers and suppliers.
But the transformation doesn’t stop there. The digital foundation laid through this project has opened future innovation pathways for the company. Whether it’s scaling their platform to handle even greater demand or adopting new technologies such as AI-driven customer insights, the customer is now fully equipped to lead the charge in digital innovation for the automotive parts industry.
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