2 page Case Study - Posted 1/16/2007

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Borneo Motors

Auto Dealer Upgrades Operating System, Improves Customer Service, and Cuts IT Costs

Borneo Motors, an automotive dealer in Singapore, is test driving the Windows Vista™ operating system to empower its small IT department with better desktop management tools and to improve staffers’ ability to access and share data. The IT department reduced desktop support time by an estimated 25 percent and service staffers are reducing auto service times by using Windows Vista to quickly search and share mechanical and customer data.

Business Needs

With a history that dates back to 1856 and is closely entwined with parent company Inchcape UK, Borneo Motors has grown to become a leading player in the automotive retail sector in Singapore–especially since 1967 when it began a successful relationship with Toyota Motor Corporation. Today, more than 120,000 Toyota car owners in Singapore have experienced the excellent customer service that distinguishes Borneo Motors from its competitors.

The company’s management is aware that delivering the right technology to its employees is a key factor in enabling them to provide efficient, friendly service. According to Stephen Wong, General Manager of Information Systems at Borneo Motors, technology contributes to better customer service in two primary areas: providing a well-managed desktop infrastructure for employees to boost their efficiency, and promoting team collaboration to support customer-focused service.

“Our business depends on the success of our people, but without proper tools it’s difficult for employees to work efficiently,” Wong says. “With only 8 IT staff managing more than 300 personal computers and 30 laptops, we need the best tools available to support the desktop to help keep our employees productive. In the IT department, we were hampered by manual processes like testing separate images for different hardware; installing new application software, security patches, and images; and physically visiting desktops to back up and restore files and provide customer support.”

With employees distributed among 11 remote sites linked via an asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL)-ethernet network, trying to find information in shared file folders on the network to coordinate customer service had been a problem. “Our service advisors use data from many service manuals, mechanical documents, and parts lists,” Wong explains. “It took too long to find and share information between the service centers, increasing operational costs, and slowing down customer auto services.”

Solution

For these reasons, Borneo Motors decided to test the Windows Vista™ operating system. The company saw an opportunity to further empower its employees, both in the IT department and across the company, by learning first hand the benefits offered by the new operating system–before its competitors. “We were particularly excited about the improvements offered in desktop infrastructure management,” says Wong. “We also wanted to see how the new system would make it easier to find and share information among our service centers.”

Borneo Motors installed Windows Vista on 20 personal computers in the Sales and Marketing, Service, Finance, Human Resources, and IT departments. Each computer is also running corporate standard applications, including Microsoft® Office Professional Edition 2003; the Microsoft Visual Studio® 2005 development system; Kerridge Autoline Dealer Management System; Incadea, an enterprise resource planning system for the automotive industry from Reynolds & Reynolds; an in-house electronic parts catalogue; and Symantec AntiVirus.

“We plan on further rolling out Windows Vista to 120 people in these departments, and then finally to the whole organization,” says Wong. “Windows Vista has tools, like the Application Compatibility Toolkit, that are helping us reduce the time and cost of managing application compatibility and deployment in our environment.”

Benefits

Borneo Motors has already seen significant benefits with its initial Windows Vista deployment, all of which bode well for the company’s continued reliance on technology to boost employee productivity and customer service. “Windows Vista has empowered our lean IT department to efficiently and economically deliver a productivity-enhancing operating system to our staff,” says Wong.

Windows Vista has empowered our lean IT department to efficiently and economically deliver a productivity-enhancing operating system to our staff. Stephen Wong General Manager, Information Systems, Borneo Motors

Simplified Deployment

Wong says, “We can save half an hour per machine using Windows Vista secure remote deployment. We’ll get ongoing savings from Windows® Imaging Format, which helps solve our most time consuming task: managing desktop images for different hardware. It’s also easier for us to customize the operating system to fit our needs.”

Improved Desktop Support

Instead of providing support at the employees’ desktops, the IT department is saving time by not having to travel to different service centers. “We are reducing desktop support time by 25 percent with improved Remote Assistance and the Event Viewer in Windows Vista,” says Wong.

Enhanced Security

Borneo Motors’s prior experience with staffers losing data and accidentally deleting their files has almost disappeared on the machines running Windows Vista. “We are using User Account Control to better lock down the desktop, and Windows Backup Center makes it much easier for employees to manage the safeguarding of their own data and to retrieve lost files.”

Better Collaboration

“Efficient search functionality is important in our document-heavy service department, and Windows Vista is saving service staff a lot of time,” Wong continues. “With easier and more secure access to corporate data, we can readily share mechanical and service data between centers to reduce service time for customers.”