“With the help of Xparo we were able to meet the specific goal of offering our sales personnel a clearly arranged and customised Extranet equipped with a search tool. We were able to design the Extranet to comply with our current CI guidelines with Xparo’s expertise as well as quickly and successfully implement it”, Michaela Ebner, an IT support employee at Mercedes Benz Austria.
The most important resource for direct sales, aside from the product itself, is having the most detailed information about the product on hand. To be able to provide all dealers and service stations in Austria with this information, Mercedes Benz Austria has created an extensive Extranet using the Business Content Management System (CMS) contentXXL for all associated retailers and workshops. The project was implemented by Xparo GmbH from Nuremberg, Germany.
Information is a resource that needs to be processed quickly in the business world, and at the same time it is irreplaceable. Information must, therefore, reach the people who require it in the quickest and most direct way. In the automobile industry these people are the sales personnel, who need to give the customer a good argument to invest in a product, which will for most customers take years to pay off. Such a task requires being prepared with the most current information and facts about the product, especially today as customers are becoming increasingly demanding and better informed - due to prior research via the Internet. A premium manufacturer like Mercedes Benz has to set itself apart in this area with better than average standards. In other words, a first-class brand requires a first-class information channel. Mercedes Benz Austria, a general importer of all Daimler Benz brands, accepted this challenge. The solution was a customised Extranet based on the powerful Content Management System contentXXL.
Fig: Service and information are crucial for the Extranet of Mercedes Benz Austria
A crucial factor in the decision to work together with contentXXL was the CMS’s easy use through a WYSIWIG editor and its drag-and-drop functionality. An additional advantage: contentXXL is 100% based on Microsoft .NET technology and therefore integrates trouble-free with Microsoft products, which make-up Mercedes Benz Austria’s existing IT structure. Moreover, contentXXL Active Directory Connector was installed to manage user authorisation, making it possible to quickly and easily define the user access rights for the Extranet by using the existing AD user groups.
In addition to the Active Directory Connector, Xparo, a trusted contentXXL Solutions Partner, supplied the Extranet with the News and Document Module. The system also has the Standard Context Search function and an A-Z index to enable faster searches for sought after information. Additional product and service information is also clearly and automatically presented as related content. Furthermore, the most up-to-date personnel information, in regards to staff changes, is continuously maintained through the “New Employees” function.
Xparo’s experience with implementing challenging contentXXL projects allowed the company to quickly create a prototype of the Extranet and to expand it step by step by using templates. Moreover, administrators and editors were trained to enter content and develop their own templates during the implementation process. Michaela Ebner, an IT support employee at Mercedes Benz Austria, summarises the project’s course: “With the help of Xparo we were able to meet the specific goal of offering our sales personnel a clearly arranged and customised Extranet equipped with a search tool. We were able to design the Extranet to comply with our current CI guidelines with Xparo’s expertise as well as quickly and successfully implement it.”
The more efficient and effective distribution of information, which was achieved with the new Extranet, will be extended in the medium term through further automations, e.g. for formula based processes.
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About Xparo GmbH:
Xparo key competence is development and integration of customer and project specific software solutions for business processes and Web portals. The company has special competence in the area of .NET technology: Internet, Intranet and Extranet solutions, customizing of standard software, development of special software modules, integration of distributed web applications as well as software porting on Microsoft .NET technology.
Contact:
Jan-Carl Mehles
Marketing Manager
Tel.: + 49 (0)911 2550-450
Fax: + 49 (0)911 2550-405
E-Mail: info@xparo.com