Automotive supplier

Added value for the customer

Management Summary

A German company operating in the automotive industry was planning to equip its global offices with standard hardware. For a better view of the individual national companies, the group management wanted support from an IT service provider with experience in international business. With IT-HAUS as a certified service partner, the group now benefits from leaner processes, needs-based deliveries and better conditions from Dell by bundling its purchasing volume at a global level.

Project environment

The client, based in Germany, is an international manufacturer in the automotive industry. It employs around 4,200 people at eleven locations in Europe, America and Asia. While the IT of the entire group is managed from the German headquarters, hardware procurement was previously organized decentrally. To gain a better overview of the processes in the individual national companies, the group management wanted support at a global level from an external IT service provider. To free up resources through standardization, the automotive supplier invited tenders for a uniform IT shopping basket for all its locations worldwide. This includes notebooks, desktop PCs, screens and accessories for office users as well as high-performance workstations for CAD developers, for example - a total of around 2,600 end devices in six device classes and 2,400 monitors. A contract concluded centrally in Germany was also to enable countries outside the EU to access these via a global price list. In addition to mapping the shopping cart via a web platform, other requirements included delivery to all locations with contractually fixed delivery times and no minimum order quantities, so that no additional shipping costs were incurred for individual deliveries. Other requirements included user-specific software refueling by the external partner and the option of stockpiling to shorten delivery times.

Project success

Thanks to its long-standing strategic partnership with the manufacturer Dell, IT-HAUS impressed those responsible both in terms of price and in terms of expertise, experience and flexibility when it comes to implementing a global procurement strategy. A global supply contract regulates the Group's needs-based supply of hardware, which each individual national company can access at equally favorable conditions. To this end, IT-HAUS has defined suitable standard products together with the manufacturer - including Dell OptiPlex desktop PCs, Dell Latitude notebooks, Dell Precision workstations as well as monitors, docking stations and other accessories. The shopping cart is made available at IT-HAUS via a web-based, user-friendly platform that can only be accessed by users selected by the customer. This allows them to order the desired devices from an individual catalog and have them delivered on site fully configured and set up at the click of a mouse. All prices are shown in the respective local currency and are only adjusted to the currency market on a quarterly basis so that the customer can make long-term calculations. The web store is linked to an authorized partner network, which processes orders via local resellers in the individual countries. This means that the respective local specialist retail partners handle both delivery to the relevant national company and invoicing. This has enabled a significant reduction in costs and effort to be achieved outside Europe as well. However, end users also benefit from the standardization - it ensures a smooth operational process and that the entire ordering process can be completed much more quickly. Within Europe, the customer uses its own platform linked to its merchandise management system, which enables it to process all its orders via one and the same portal. Here, IT-HAUS is registered as a supplier and can therefore also make its shopping cart available. The devices are pre-configured in the staging center at IT-HAUS GmbH in Föhren. For user-specific refueling, IT-HAUS receives a corresponding list with each order and accesses the customer's software environment via VPN connection in order to install the desired applications. All of the group's IT workstations worldwide are successively replaced with new hardware in this way. This means that users are immediately supplied with new devices when required. In addition, IT-HAUS stocks a certain number of end devices so that the customer remains independent of supply bottlenecks and therefore competitive. The Group now manages its entire client hardware procurement centrally from Germany and enjoys considerable price advantages from the manufacturer thanks to volume bundling. While uniform hardware standards and uniform procurement processes minimize process and administrative costs worldwide, transparent procurement volumes serve as a basis for the automotive supplier to manage its investments in various product areas in a more targeted manner. As IT-HAUS acts as a single point of contact for all of the customer's locations worldwide, the customer can devote itself entirely to its core business - safe in the knowledge that it always has an experienced contact person at its side if it has any questions or problems.

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