Case Study: Camtune - Online car stock management system
Background - Camtune
Camtune are an independent car dealer with outlets in Godalming and Canary Wharf.
They have been established for 23 years and have gained a reputation for quality
of service without the high expense of a franchised Porsche dealership.
They were dissatisfied with the speed and design of the old database being used
to manage their stock. At the same time they wished to simplify their current business
processes and reduce the dependency on a single in-house expert to manage the car
stock database. This meant the solution had to be easy to use by all members of
staff.
The business challenge – high performance and ease of use
Camtune wanted their site to present an up to the minute reflection of the stock
on their forecourts detailing all the information a prospective buyer could need.
In addition there should be the opportunity for site visitors to request a test
drive and to request printed details of either a particular car or all cars.
Prior to the project Camtune were using Motortrak’s service for managing their car
stock online. They found this slow when searching for cars and complex to maintain.
As a result they had become dependent upon one person to keep the car stock up to
date and that person was also key to many other business activities.
The challenge for the project team was to deliver a solution which captured the
complexity of the car features while keeping the management system very simple to
use. Whoever was at the site on the day should be able to maintain the stock lists
easily and quickly to minimise their time away from sales.
Our approach – the project
Initial meetings with the Camtune Managing Director confirmed the project scope
and business objectives.
Two sessions reviewing the current processes highlighted the problems Camtune were
experiencing.
A Functional Specification was produced which was followed by a series of review
meetings with the client to refine the system.
For example it was decided that there was a need for the client to handle digital
photos in order to load them onto the site so we produced a very easy to use cropping
tool which completely met their needs.
We also worked closely with a graphic design agency who was providing the style
of the site.
At the implementation stage, part of our service involved loading all the model
management data. We were proud that the Managing Director was able to look at the
system over the weekend before going live and input his data without any training
whatsoever.
The project was delivered in 2 months and successfully implemented on our web hosting
facility at Telehouse.
The resulting system – an easy to use powerful stock maintenance system
To accommodate the complexity of the stock attributes and the need for ease of use
the management system was split into two sections. One held the data which is applicable
to many cars. This would need little maintenance once set up and should not need
to be accessed by the general staff in order to maintain the stock. The second section
held the information which would change more often for example car colours, special
features and the actual cars for sale.
The Administration interface thus became very easy to use from any browser whilst
being secure. The car maintenance is now undertaken by the sales staff and takes
up a very small amount of their time.
Additional features to the system are the easy preparation of car stock lists or
individual car reports. These are produced dynamically from the database in a PDF
format. We were able to use our experience of producing dynamic PDFs for other clients
and were confident in recommending the use of TallPDF from Tall Components. Customers
can request a report or stock list online, which is then sent directly to them using
the same dynamic production of PDFs. Sales staff are kept informed by email of any
such interest shown by potential customers.
The front-end was designed to capture the sales leads as early as possible and provide
good customer service. This included a series of forms such as request for a test
drive.
Technology – a scalable robust solution
The solution was built using ASP.NET. It was designed to make the most of the .NET
advances in reusability, security and robustness.
The ASP.NET software design has a separate data access layer to enable any database
backend. In this case SQL Server 2000 was adopted as the most secure and scalable
solution with purpose built data providers from Microsoft.
TallPDF was licensed to enable the production of the stock reports and individual
car details. A new requirement for information to be produced that could be hung
inside the cars on the forecourts was easily met using this technology.
The site is hosted on a dual Xeon processor server, at our Telehouse hosting facility.
The hosting includes access to DeepMetrix LiveStats which is probably the best log
analyser available on the market.
Conclusions - The business benefits
The primary objective of delivering an easy to use and fast stock management system
has been achieved. The site itself has been a success in terms of the traffic received
and sales leads captured. Camtune continue to refine and enhance the system as a
result.
A 2nd phase of the project to deliver on online servicing and repair cost calculator
is complete and awaiting the cost data to be finalised before going live in the
near future.
References / Links
Further Information
For further details and a quote based upon your particular requirements, please
contact:
Adam McCarthy on +44 (0) 208 399 5853 or
enquiries@parabolasoft.co.uk