Background

A leading casting automotive supplier faced significant challenges with their sales planning system. They were using Salesforce, including an app called Up2go, but the system was inflexible, inefficient, and did not meet their sales planning requirements.

Challenges

• Inflexible and Inefficient System: Existing system did not fulfill the sales planning requirements.

• Single Volume Source: Reliance on just one volume source, leading to less transparency.

• Uncomfortable Data Entry: Data entry process was not user-friendly.

• No Visibility on Market Share Developments: Inability to track market share changes, leading to untimely responses.
  

• No Management-Suitable Reporting: The reporting in salesforce did not meet the requirements of the management

• Weak possibilities to analyze the business: Segmenting data and visualizing it was not fulfilling the requirements 

Implementing Sales Planning: The Transition Process from Salesforce to Digital Automotive 

The transition was seamless for the automotive supplier. They simply downloaded existing project data from the Salesforce platform, which was then uploaded to Digital Automotive. This data was subsequently connected to the S&P Global Mobility data by the Digital Automotive experts. The automotive supplier's team received training on using Digital Automotive. The entire transformation phase took a total of 3 months. Close cooperation made this successful transition to a benefitial solution in short time possible.

Solution

Switching from Salesforce to Digital Automotive Took the Casting Automotive Supplier's Sales Planning to the Next Level. Here are the Key Improvements:

• Automated Reports: Generated automated reports with growth curves, portfolio comparisons, and instant market insights from S&P.

• Transparency on Strategic Targets: Overviews of strategic targets which can be flexibly adapted to new market developments.

• Real-Time Sales Planning: Updates of volumes. prices and strategic targets in real-time.

• Easy Project Setup: Facilitated easy project setup with S&P Global Mobility links for automatic refill and constant volume updates.

• Multi-Project Setup: Supported multi-project setups (several carlines and engines in one project).

• User-Friendly Data Entry: Improved data entry with Excel-like sheets for user comfort.

• Individual Price and Cost Templates: Provided the possibility for maximum planning flexibility to use multiple (customer-specific) price and cost templates.

• Individual Project Attributes: each project can now be set-up with as many individual attributes as needed. The casting supplier used this functionality for being able to segment projects by Business Units and licensing model.

• Detailed Planning: Allowed planning at project and part number levels.

• Automated Indexations: Enabled automated and centralized, more transparent indexations for raw materials.

• Connections to SAP: Integrated actual volumes and short-term call-offs.

• Scenario Planning: Enabled volume planning in different scenarios, including own projections, S&P forecasts, contracted volumes, budgeted volumes, and other planning scenarios.

• Automatic Market Share Calculation: Included automatic market share calculations with competitor sales developments and overall market observations.
  

Results

• Expected Flexibility: All sales planning requirements from the casting supplier are now achieved.

• Real-time Sales Reports: Always ready for management meetings segmentable in all needed dimensions.

• Instant Market Insights: Provided instant access to market insights from S&P in automated reports.

• Proactive Market Share Management: Enabled timely detection of market share developments.

• Time saving: Automated reports, data imports and prefills free up time for sales professionals.