In today's business world, companies need to have access to accurate and prompt electronic records is vital for efficiency and agility. The technological space requires businesses to use tools to store and analyze data and enjoy complete oversight over the company. For OEMs and distributors, an SAP vehicle management system (VMS) is crucial to building an effective fleet management system.
Key Part of Your Supply Chain Management System
An automotive vehicle management system helps your businesses optimize all processes when transacting with suppliers, OEMs/manufacturers, dealers and ultimately tracking the vehicle's sale to an end customer. Detering Consulting provides an end-to-end VMS and Warranty Dealer Portal to the OEM to give a holistic view of the vehicle buying and servicing process and the entire vehicle management life cycle using SAP automotive fleet management process flow. And especially piece of the VMS system is the distribution module, which facilitates much of the process.
What Is a Vehicle Management System?
VMS vs ERP
A VMS is software that puts all standard business processes and foundational capabilities of a standard SAP ERP system in the context of a vehicle OEM and distributor. The VMS centralizes data management and business processes to make it easy for employees in different business functions to access information.
At the heart of the SAP VMS is a vehicle database that links to all actions happening to a vehicle during its lifetime including maintenance events and fuel consumption, to name but a few. The actions, in this case, are the business processes that occur to a vehicle. With the VMS, you can access actions and data on a car, such as purchase orders, sales orders to dealers and end-users, inspections, and warranties. All the information is stored in the SAP VMS electronically and automatically for easy retrieval.
A VMS is also flexible because it helps you create additional actions through configuration. What's more, the Detering Consulting SAP VMS enables you to link a string of actions, to create a flowing process, to help you manage a business. At any given point, you are always aware of a vehicle's status or if the current action was successful. Also, the VMS tells you the prerequisite action to perform before another to ensure smooth operations.
Furthermore, you can extend the VMS functions to your dealers through the Detering Consulting Dealer Portal, which allows dealers to access OEMs' or distributors' information without having to log in to the system themselves. The Dealer Portal, which includes the VMS, sets up your dealerships in the digital era to help you stay in charge of your vehicle inventory, manage new orders, and track vehicles throughout their life cycle.
Who Needs a Vehicle Management System?
Importers, Distributors, and OEMs/Manufacturers need the SAP VMS & Dealer Portal. The SAP VMS works as a central management tool that integrates all your business processes and actions to enable business efficiency, electronic and automatic data storage, and streamlined services down to the end-user. As you make your business more efficient, you reduce costs and improve overall profits.
Why Should You Invest In the Detering Consulting SAP VMS?
Investing in good software is about finding a product that works for your industry and unique operations. When you invest in a VMS, you enjoy all the business processes you would do anyway in a natural business setting, but with the efficiency of a centralized system built for an automotive OEM or distributor. Purchase orders, sales orders, invoices, payments, and delivery tracking are in no way unique to the automotive industry. However, the SAP VMS is the best enterprise resource planning (ERP) software for any vehicle OEM/manufacturer or automotive distributor.
What Is an SAP VMS For?
Complete Oversight Over Your Vehicles
The modern business environment expects you to be fast and automated. Traditional business models that decentralize information make it difficult to access information and increase data errors. You need software that helps you access accurate business data and vehicle information to track your business processes and predict future transactions. You also need software that enhances online and phone-based transactions, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic.
An SAP VMS and Dealer Portal gives you complete control over:
- Orders from the supplier, OEM/manufacturer, or distributor
- Vehicle configuration and search by vehicle attributes
- Managing vehicle rebates and passing them on to a consumer
- Handling simple and complex car inquiries
- Vehicle sales and rewards for dealers
Our VMS also features vital add-ons and configurations that help you manage all your procurement, sales, servicing, returns, and re-work processes. With the Dealer Portal, your dealers enjoy add-ons for vehicle owner tracking, action interlinking, inter-company transactions, product planning, vehicle shipping, and transportation.
Managing The F&I Process
Your finance and insurance department is critical to the sale of vehicles to distributors or dealerships. You can improve the pace and efficiency of your F&I department by providing an SAP VMS that ensures accurate digital records and fast information retrieval.
With swift information, your F&I experts can review the client's credit records, create client profiles, and structure loans and leases for vehicle purchases. They can also ensure smooth communication with your clients to retrieve necessary documents for a car purchase and explain financial details and available products. A VMS helps your F&I department work in a fast, orderly and legal fashion.
Warranty and Services
Are you tired of digging through old, dusty files to deal with a warranty claim several years down the line? Or maybe, you saved a client's vehicle details but can't find the correct file within your systems? The Detering Consulting SAP VMS eliminates warranty and service woes by integrating all your operations and saving your data in a central system. Furthermore, you enjoy full knowledge of any ongoing warranty claims. With the SAP VMS, you enjoy:
- A complete view of actionable warranty claims and claim creation
- Capped price servicing
- Vehicle service history
- Real-time changes on a vehicle's configuration
- Access to dealer forms (in long text)
Additionally, the Dealer Portal helps your dealerships handle complex warranty processes on the customer side. This is possible through the SAP Warranty Management Module that features 10+ add-ons for claim management, campaign management, warranty pricing, scanning, accuracy checks, part numbers, reconciliation, and more.
Our team at Detering Consulting works closely with you to configure the SAP Warranty Module with the Dealer Portal to avoid future problems. In any case, we're always available for support.
Personalized Services and Customer Relationship Management
Today's customers expect a fully personalized experience, from the beginning to the end. They also seek out businesses that can provide excellent and seamless customer experiences. In the case of Mitsubishi, it's now possible to sell cars with a 10-year Diamond Warranty, thanks to an SAP system that provides the Business Intelligence data required to craft such a long-term offering. Having access to all information, including service details, vehicle details, and warranty information, is essential to adjudicating claims successfully. With full control over your warranties and services, you're able to provide exemplary services for each client.
The seamless digital experience also helps your dealership improve its customer experience. More importantly, the SAP VMS takes the service end-result and sends it to you, the OEM, to reimburse warranties. Remember that happy dealership management is delighted to continue business with you.
Parts Management
Getting the right parts at the right time is vital to service client vehicles on time. The Dealer Portal offers deep integration with the parts catalog for efficiency. Additionally, predictive analysis helps you determine which parts are needed for the next servicing.
Thanks to the predictive systems, you can replenish stocks on time and receive alerts when a part is delayed or unavailable. Furthermore, you can recall parts or alert a dealership not to sell parts (right down to the specific serial numbered part) to the end consumer if you notice a malfunction.
With the Detering Consulting VMS, you enjoy:
- Efficient ordering
- Smart inventory management
- Parts returns, price adjustment, limited time offers
- Performance dashboards
- Intelligent tracking and stock recommendation
- Predictive vehicle analytics
Self Service
The SAP VMS and Dealer Portal support every user according to their needs and responsibilities. You don't have to maintain full access and control over all actions when you can delegate tasks to your dealers or suppliers. Your dealers have access to the central information center where they can directly access every detail they require, of course, with access control. What's more, users can access the portal in their language.
Sales and Marketing
Continuous marketing is essential to draw in more clients and keep your business going. The Dealer Portal enhances your marketing by providing real-time sales data and vehicle performance. With real-time sales, you always know where your business stands and when and how to put in more effort. Your marketing team can use the data to target potential clients in collaboration with your dealerships.
Performance data, which comes directly from vehicle on-board systems, helps you estimate vehicle performance several years down the line and provide excellent descriptions for future clients. More importantly, you can track vehicle sales over different regions and states to determine which areas are marketing priorities. You can also integrate your SAP vehicle management system with content management software to gain better marketing insights.
Security
Whether you are moving 200 or 1 million vehicles annually, you cannot afford to compromise your security. You need software designed with your best interests at heart and regularly updated for your business's security. Since your vehicle management system acts as a central business management portal, it needs to be completely secure from vulnerabilities. Detering Consulting works around the clock to keep the SAP VMS safe and updated.
Get The Ultimate SAP VMS Today
The automotive industry is complex, and automating processes help you simplify your operations. You need complete control of all parts of your enterprise. This includes vehicle sales, spare parts, service, returns, recalls. Additionally, you need warranties, dealer user management, customer support, and warranty processing. You also need fast and complete access to all your records for decision-making. With the SAP VMS - Vehicle Management System and our SAP Fiori-based Dealer Portal, your dealerships enjoy seamless integration of business processes such as:
- Procurement
- Sales and Services
- Marketing
- Finance
- Warranties
Consult with us today and upgrade your digital automotive vehicle management system and dealer portal:
