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Behind the Scenes with MySQL Suzuki Drives Sales and Profitability…
Tags: american suzuki motor corporation, asmc, award winning sales, creative production, extensive research, leading systems, margo, marketing communications, motorcycle atv, motorcycle makers, product brochure, product knowledge, retail marketing, retail outlet, scooters suzuki, suzuki motor, suzuki motor corporation, suzuki sales, zenk, zero administration,Pages: 4
Language: english
Created: Tue Jul 20 08:13:56 2004
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Behind the Scenes with MySQL
Suzuki Drives Sales and Profitability
with MySQL
American Suzuki Motor Corporation (ASMC) teamed with
Matrix Consultants, to develop the Suzuki Sales P.R.O.
(Professional Retail Outlet) kiosk; an award-winning sales
tool for ASMC dealers nationwide. Matrix Consultants
is a leading systems integrator who specializes in retail
marketing, communications and creative production for
clients in the U.S. and Japan.
ASMC markets motorcycles, ATVs and scooters in the
United States through a network of 1,150 dealerships
in 49 states. ASMC's parent company, Suzuki Motor
Corporation was founded in 1909 and is one of Japan's
"Big Four" motorcycle makers offering a complete line of
motorcycles, ATVs and scooters. Suzuki Motor Corporation
has a diversified global network of production with
distributors in 140 countries.
After extensive research, ASMC found that many sales-
people in their motorcycle, ATV, and scooter dealerships
lacked product knowledge. Handing a new salesperson a
detailed product brochure with a list of terminology was
not enough. ASMC found many of their customers were
researching their product on the Internet and visiting "MySQL was the only database
dealerships knowing more about the bikes than their
that combined ease of use and reli-
sales people.
ability with an affordable licensing
model, so we could deliver the
Suzuki Sales P.R.O on budget."
Margo Zenk
Matrix Consultants
Behind the Scenes with MySQL Suzuki Motor Corporation
Reliability & Zero Administration
As a result, ASMC needed to Ease of Use "Suzuki Sales P.R.O. is unlike
create a tool that would enable
Ease of use and deployment any other retail-oriented tech-
their sales people to be more
were critical requirements in
knowledgeable than their cus-
order for Matrix Consultants to nology currently used in the
tomers. ASMC needed an appli-
deploy a system in time for the
cation that put all product infor- motorcycle and ATV industry
spring and summer months.
mation at the fingertips of the
Matrix Consultants developed
sales person and integrated it and is used by 60% of our
a prototype in the Fall. After the
into the sales process. The result
prototype proved successful, dealers. In comparable indus-
was the Suzuki Sales P.R.O.
Matrix Consultants shipped a
(Professional Retail Outlet).
production version, only 3 tries, kiosk systems fail to cover
The Suzuki Sales P.R.O. months later. Full deployment
launched in early 2003. The to the dealerships followed in the key selling processes and
kiosk unit, designed to improve Spring, in time for Suzuki to
cost four to five times more
the sales of Suzuki's core prod- capitalize on the peak buying
ucts, accessories and services season. than the Suzuki Sales P.R.O."
by providing detailed product
information and automating Mel Harris
sales processes, is an award Scalabilty & Cost Vice President of ASMC
winning technological accom- Motorcycle/ATV Division
Matrix Consultants prototyped
plishment. MySQL® is at the
their solution using Microsoft
core of this solution, driving
Access but found that Access
the database requirements for
would not scale to accommo- Reliability & Zero
the Suzuki Sales P.R.O. at over
date a growing customer data- Administration
600 dealerships nationwide.
base that would reach hundreds
The dealerships don't have
of thousands of records at each
dedicated technical resources,
of the dealerships. To satisfy
Product Requirements so in order to make the project
their scalability requirements,
a success, it was essential to
The Suzuki Sales P.R.O kiosk Matrix looked at migrating the
select a database that was
application required an afford- Access database to Microsoft
dependable and did not require
able database with proven SQL Server, but it too failed to
any on-site administration.
scalability, reliability, and zero meet their TCO (Total Cost of
With over 600 dealerships
administration. After evaluating Ownership) requirements.
using the Suzuki Sales P.R.O.,
numerous databases, Matrix Even with volume discounts,
Matrix Consultants could not
Consultants choose MySQL Microsoft SQL Server was too
compromise the reliability of
as the ideal database to meet costly to meet their needs.
the system.
these requirements.
The Suzuki Sales P.R.O. Kiosk System
The Suzuki Sales P.R.O. is an x Maintain a customer "My sales staff uses Sales P.R.O.
electronic kiosk designed to relations database to
interact with sales personnel promote specials and open for every customer we talk to.
and customers. For the first houses, improving profit-
We've sold 20% more Suzuki
time, prospective customers can ability of the dealerships.
build their custom motorcycle bikes and improved accessory
x Track which models and
by changing the color and
accessories are most
adding accessories such as sales since getting the Sales
popular to improve
chrome details, bags, and lights
inventory management. P.R.O. unit in our store."
in real-time in the dealership.
The Suzuki Sales P.R.O. Kiosk The system allows individual
application uses MySQL to: dealers to customize pricing Mark Fasten
and product information to Sales Manager, Powersports East
x Store all product configura- New Castle, DE
better meet the needs of their
tions and pricing details on
local market. In turn, the Suzuki
Suzuki's full line of motor-
Sales P.R.O. simplifies and
cycles, ATVs, scooters, and
enhances the sales process Typically, updates are 5MB -
corresponding accessories
for the customers and enables 20MB when 3-D models of
over multiple model years.
dealers to increase the average motorcycles with accessories
x Automatically update sale price of each order. and database content is
dealership product catalogs distributed.
with the latest product
Updates and backups are
information by distributing Data Distribution is Key
available to dealers 24/7. New
changes from a master The system also allows the content is automatically posted
database at headquarters. dealers to quickly offer new for distribution 5 days a week
x Provide a secure login for products and accessories to to the 600 + dealerships.
sales representatives and its customers faster than com-
sales managers. petitors. Matrix Consultants
maintains a master database
x Enable sales managers to
with over 85,000 records. To
track the performance of
ensure dealerships are offering
their sales staff.
the latest products, Matrix
Consultants uses the rsync and
MySQL Administration Utilities
to distribute changes from the
master database to the dealers.
Technical Environment "We've seen a 35% increase in motorcycle
Suzuki P.R.O. Kiosk Dealer Appliance and accessory sales with Suzuki Sales P.R.O.
Hardware: Dell Optiplex 260s and 270s
It's been 100% reliable, and paid for itself
OS: Windows XP
many times over."
CPU: Pentium 4, 2.4 Ghz
RAM: 1GB RAM Danny Herman
Owner of Action Motor Sports Suzuki, Loganville, GA
Hard Disk: 40 GB
Database: MySQL Server
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