QUBE Automotive has developed a bespoke business reporting tool for Nissan Central Europe which is strengthening the performance of its dealer groups in Germany, Austria and Switzerland thanks to intelligent automation.
With a 10-year Car Parc of more than 700,000 cars across these three markets, even small adjustments are having a significant impact on revenue when scaled.
The ‘Parts Performance Monitor’ tool (known as PPM), automates manual functions to improve efficiency and provides daily, accurate and relevant reports to dealers, the field force and managers about parts and accessory sales across the dealer network.
Automation is central to the PPM system and has improved productivity and sales of high-value parts. “We used to create reports manually and email PDFs to the field force and dealers. PPM streamlined this process so that all data is now processed automatically in a secure online system which generates accurate reports on a daily basis to people at all levels of the business,” explains Markus Salz, Section Manager for Projects and Strategy at Nissan Central Europe.
PPM also extracts all the data needed for bonus calculations; it then automatically creates the relevant reports and sends these directly to the finance department so payments can be processed faster. “When we have all the data in, we can automatically create reports for all the parts which are used in bonus calculations. This can then be uploaded into SAP for direct payments, which has reduced the workload for the finance team and improved dealers’ motivation to reach targets,” explains Markus.
By automating the process around incentives and bonus schemes, dealers have more accurate information about how they are progressing towards bonus targets, and the field force can identify zones, regions and even individual dealers that need additional focus. “PPM has made it easier to steer achievement towards bonus targets and has improved transparency, resulting in overall better bonus results for dealers,” said Markus.
The PPM tool was designed so that end-users could run queries to create their own reports, both from the dealers’ side, and the field force and management side. “It took some adjusting, but once dealers and the team got used to creating their own reports using the PPM system, they came to appreciate its advantages,” said Markus. Users can create individualised reports down to a high-level of detail, for example: differentiating between low and high turn-over parts; parts with higher profit margins; and parts with higher potential sales in a given region.
By feeding up-to-date Car Parc data directly into the system, PPM can also identify potential sales. This level of information enables managers to set meaningful KPIs, as well as monitor dealers’ achievement against their targets. “For example, we can identify potential sales of oil filters within a 50-mile radius of any given dealer, and thereby create a meaningful target for sales of this part for that specific dealer group,” explains Markus. The impact has been tangible with turn-over of high-competitive parts increasing relative to the wider market.
PPM has been operating across Nissan Central Europe’s network since 2013 with regular developments each year to serve the changing needs of the business. In the past six months, following consultation with the manufacturer, QUBE updated PPM so that certain data such as warranty turn-over can be subtracted. Markus explains why: “subtracting predictable data such as warranty turn-over provides a more accurate indicator of the dealers’ real performance which in turn impacts on rewards and incentives.”
“Having a daily overview is very important and all the team – from the field force through to dealers – have the same updated figures each morning. PPM was designed to allow different levels of data access depending on a user’s role within the business so it is flexible.”
“The team at QUBE Automotive Consultancy have always been very responsive to our requests for new features and capabilities and have developed PPM into a tool which serves the unique needs of Nissan Central Europe as it operates in multiple countries. Also, their detailed understanding of how the automotive industry works and knowledge of current market trends is invaluable,” concluded Markus.
