FAQ

Every day more than 1000 people log into Digital Automotive.

Yes. As we have many happy customers, we can arrange meetings where you can ask your questions to DA users.

We recommend DA for automotive suppliers with a minimum annual turnover of 50 Mio. €. There are no upper limits in terms of size. We have automotive suppliers in the Bn. € area who benefit from DA. 

Yes. It has been developed since 2015 in close connections with automotive suppliers. All functionalities are of course, tested and success-prooven in real-life. An investment of two-digit million euros has been made into DA, and these investments persist in providing the utmost customer experience.

Yes. Everywhere where you have internet access, you can enjoy the benefits of Digital Automotive.

Yes. You save time with DA by replacing the enormous effort you have with your infinite Excel files. The time-savers in DA are: 

• Easy-to-use sales workflows are designed with maximum automation, ensuring efficiency.
• Seamlessly integrate data from various sources, minimizing manual input.
• If manual input is necessary, this is done just once, and data is used multiple times.
• Automatically generated reports directly derived from the workflows save time and effort in report preparation.
• Input from changes to your price list is done automatically.

Yes. Our customers consider DA very intuitive and very user-friendly. Use our free trial phase and convince yourself.

Yes of course. All people using DA are trained. In addition to that, there is a knowledge base and a build in-tutorial directly in the software.

Yes. AI for example recommends to you ideal strategic projects to have your plant capacities utilized or to avoid that you loose market share. Many more things will come in the future which make your life easier.

DA is designed for the automotive supplier industry. So clear focus on that. If you have for your sales planning the need to see in there also e.g. aerospace or industry business, then this is also possible to visualize it in DA.

Based on our decade-long experience in the automotive supplier industry, we learned that Excel is not the answer. Unfortunately also CRM software is designed for a different purpose. So we decide to build a software made exactly for the needs of this industry.

Yes. Like all software programs today there is a continuous delivery in additional features and functionalities,

Yes. Concerning the reports, especially in the strategy report all departments on the executive level are interested in and benefit from using DA.

No. Digital Automotive is developed as a plug-and-play solution based on automotive supplier sales benchmarks. 

If you have very specific requirements, customizing is possible, but normally not necessary to fulfill the requirements from the sales departements.

Yes. As it is a Web-App you can access it from any browser.

Yes.

Yes.

Digital Automotive fulfills the latest security and quality standards:

• TISAX certified
• ISO 9001 certified
• We are working according to ISO 27001 standards
• Microsoft Azure environment
• Trusted Cloud-Service provider: 99,95% availability
• Data protection conformity
• Administration Server with SSH-Key
• Database-Backup on mirrored Server (daily)
• Let’s Encrypt (SSL-Certificate)
• Data Transfer Monitoring
• Keycloak Authorization Services
• Web Application Firewall (WAF)
• Regular Application Stress-Tests (E2E)
• CI/CD (Continuous- Integration and Delivery)
• Code Quality Gateways (SonarQube)
• Security by Design Development
• Test Automation (Back- and Frontend)

For more information, see our Trust Center (Resources) or ask our sales team.

Yes, it can be connected with everything automotive suppliers need: Your ERP (e.g. SAP), your PLM (e.g. Teamcenter), your PLC (e.g. Facton), or any other software or customer platform) 

The most requested interfaces are (of course, more is possible):

• Volume projections: S&P Global Mobility data - nothing to do for you. This comes automatically with DA
• Exchange rates: Daily calls to ECB API - nothing to do for you
• Booked business volumes: interface to your ERP for getting input on your shipments and all-offs
• Change Management input from your PLM 
• Calculation input from any PLC system

Building interfaces is an option. Not a must-do. And it can be done in a second step.

Digital Automotive is embedded in the Microsoft environment:

• Sharepoint Integration
• Office document storage
• Communication with Outlook
• Import and export in .xls
• Cloud-Services Azure
  
  

Yes. There is a Task Manager App for iOS and Android. All other DA modules can be accessed via a browser.

Yes, it is in the DNA of IT Manufactory (the software engineering company which produces Digital Automotive) to always have the latest technology. Digital Automotive is continuously improved and further developed. So the software is always up-to-date.

Yes. We can customize modules according to your needs. 

Digital Automotive is using a standard Model View Controller with an Authorization design pattern.
Secure, encrypted data transmission via OpenID Connect access tokens. 

Yes, Digital Automotive releases continuously updates with new features and performance improvements several times a year. They are always aligned with your administrator.

Both solutions are possible. Our recommendation is to do it cloud-based (SaaS).

The disadvantages and risks of Excel are common knowledge: Susceptibility to errors, lack of any control, no integration into the IT architecture, and missing security make the switch to a digital system inevitable.

But CRM is not the solution: A traditional CRM like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics is built for a different purpose. Everything automotive supplier sales needs has to be developed on these platforms by yourself. This goes from concepts via user stories to programming and testing. Just for illustration: 3.000 pages of requirements and 12.000 user stories are programmed over a period of 8 years in Digital Automotive. 

Yes. As the software is very mature, more and more automotive suppliers use it as it is and benefit for benchmark processes and reports.

This depends on your needs. We can arrange the sequence of implementation according to your needs.

It depends on the number of modules and the size of your company. The range is between 3-18 months.

We upload your legacy data in the most convenient way for you. You provide your existing data in a format you like (e.g. xls, xml) and we upload it into DA.

Technical requirement: internet access

During the implementation phase, we need a project leader / key user from your side who is our main contact person. The workload for this person will be between 1-3 days.

Yes, this is doable. Our aim is to set with DA an automotive supplier standard that everybody can use plug-and-play. But if you have specific requirements, we love to work on those.

Yes of course. We have meanwhile many suppliers who switched and plan to switch from Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics to Digital Automotive because they want the specific needs of automotive suppliers fulfilled.