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Overview

Kawasaki Motors Corp U.S.A. dramatically reduces dealer package processing time from an average of 6-9 months down to 2-4 months, while providing a great customer experience and saving direct costs.

Kawasaki Motors Corp., U.S.A. (KMC) is one of the largest distributors of powersports products including Motorcycles, ATVs, Side-By-Sides, and Personal Watercraft with a network size of over 1000 dealers. The company had largely manual processes for managing dealer documentation / packages for various franchise development actions including approving buy/sells, appointing new dealers, approving ownership changes and other similar dealer actions.

Challenges

With a large network and significant on-going activities, the dealer development team was always pressed for time to complete and approve various dealer actions. The largely paper-based processes were not only time consuming and effort intensive but also required substantial follow-up work with dealers to ensure the quality of information submitted by dealers. In many cases, the company would get incomplete information requiring even more follow-ups and causing delays.

The above challenges meant that it took very long – anywhere between six-nine months for the company to complete & approve dealer actions including new dealer appointments and buy-sells.

Additionally, there were other significant costs arising out of their paper-based processes. Shipping of paper documents were expensive and so were the costs involved in retrieving documents from archives.

Implementing a Solution

  • Improve the timeliness and quality of submissions from dealers through better tracking and collaboration
  • Dramatically optimize administration and processing of dealer documents
  • Reduce paper consumption, storage space, shipping costs and associated delays
  • Establish and centralize a consistent process across the network
  • Kawasaki decided to implement APEX, Optimum’s Dealer Package Management System, which is a fully digital and cloud-based solution, to process their dealer packages. The scope of the system was quite comprehensive and addressed the full cycle of managing dealer packages including generating electronic agreements and accommodating electronic signatures.
  • The key part of the system was to integrate the dealers into the process and have them submit documents through an online interface.
  • The system allows for the set-up of package templates which makes it easy to create, customize and initiate packages for the dealers, who can then log into the system to carry out their work. Using a series of data validations and business rules, the system ensures that all key information is provided, and documentation is complete before the packages can be submitted by the dealers to KMC. Therefore, by the time the KMC staff receives the documentation from dealers the package is largely complete and has all key information required for KMC’s internal review.
  • The system also provides full visibility to the KMC users as to the status of the package and helps them communicate with the dealers through the system itself, eliminating the need for tiresome follow-ups and phone calls.
Results & Benefits
Blue quotation marksOut of all the OEM packages, Kawasaki was easiest to use and fill out.Blue quotation marks A multi-franchised dealer surveyed
by Kawasaki
  • As a result of implementing Optimum’s fully online solution, KMC was able to dramatically streamline the processes of coordinating with its dealer users as well as new dealer candidates. KMC team was now able to provide a clear direction of the requirements to the dealers, who were also able to organize their information better. A much better and faster system was enthusiastically adopted by the dealer representatives.
  • As a result, KMC was able to reduce the package processing time to about 2-4 months – approximately a 66% reduction in time! This facilitated the activation of some new dealers quickly to meet an important fiscal deadline that may have been missed without the system.
  • The system also reduced shipping costs related to packages and documents since it completely eliminated the need for printing and shipping paper; either to dealers or internally. KMC also no longer has to pay the document archiving company every time they need some old documents – as the full history of dealer packages and documents is available in the system through an easy search process.
Optimum Info Employee: Jerry Ciolino

Jerry Ciolino

Vice President - Business Development, Marketing and HR

Jerry is the Vice President of Business Development, Marketing and HR at Optimum Info, a business solutions company providing tailored software solutions for Manufacturers to improve franchise network development, dealer profitability, field operations, and after-sales processes. Jerry has extensive experience in the Automotive and Technology industries with both manufacturers and business solution providers.

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