Metia CEP Vodilni Proizvajalec Izpušnih Sistemov Pripravljen Na Globalno Poslovanje 24/7

Windows Azure & Dynamics CRM Customer Solution Case Study

The Leading Exhaust System Manufacturer Ready for Global 24/7 Operations

Overview “Now we have a true 360° view of our partners and related Country or Region: Slovenia sales and marketing activities.” Industry: Manufacturing

Customer Profile Akrapovič is the leading global Miloš Dežnak, CEO, Akrapovič manufacturer of top-quality exhaust systems for motorcycles and performance cars and supports many of Akrapovič is the leading global manufacturer of top-quality the world top motorcycle and car racing exhaust systems for motorcycles and performance cars and teams. The company is present in more than 60 countries and on all continents. supports many of the world top motorcycle and car racing teams. Akrapovič is also an innovator in titanium and carbon Business Situation Akrapovič plans to rapidly expand to new fibre product manufacturing for use in aviation, automotive and countries and markets and to add several nautical industries, machine manufacturing, architecture, and thousands of partners in the following years. sports. Innovative solutions, global recognition and a partner network with more than 3,000 partners enable the company to Solution By working with Agito and Microsoft grow rapidly. The company’s goal is to increase revenue by 100 Consulting Services, the company percent in the next five years and aims to include several implemented a solution that integrates their Product Information System, thousands of new partners in those years. To realize their Business Portal, Internet Portal and CRM ambitious goals, they needed a solution that would better system. support their business processes that face partners and Benefits customers. By developing a solution based on Microsoft Reduced administration burden in sales and marketing solutions, they’ve improved efficiency in sales and marketing, Effective partner network strengthened relationships with their partners and laid the Improved manufacturing planning Support for global operations foundation for advancing into new markets. Situation by 100 percent in the next five years and Akrapovič is the leading global aims to add several thousand new partners manufacturer of top-quality exhaust to its partnership network. To effectively systems for motorcycles and performance support their ambitious development goals, cars and supports many of the world top the company needed a comprehensive motorcycle and car racing teams. Akrapovič solution that would efficiently link all is also an innovator in titanium and carbon business processes related to B2B and CRM fibre product manufacturing. Their operations. products are characterized by modern and exclusive design and the company is Solution renowned for its innovative titanium Despite fierce competition from technology technology. providers that were motivated by the company’s stellar reputation to offer Akrapovič aftermarket car exhaust systems aggressively priced solutions, Akrapovič can be found on leading global car brands decided to entrust the development of such as Abarth, Audi, BMW, Ferrari, their Akrapovič Business Platform system to Porsche, Lamborghini and many others. Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) Their motorcycle aftermarket or first fit Slovenia and Agito. Agito has already exhaust systems are used by Aprilia, BMW, completed several projects for Akrapovič Ducati, Gilera, Harley Davidson, Honda and and has proven that they are among the Yamaha, among others. The company is the most dependable, effective and competent official Audi Sport team partner in the 2012 partners for developing software projects FIA World Endurance Championship. Audi by using Microsoft's technologies. The Sport car with an Akrapovič exhaust system company is also renowned as a leading won 24 Hours of Le Mans race twice - in regional company for Microsoft SharePoint 2010 and 2011. The Company is also an Server deployments, custom .NET Official Partner to BMW Motorsport DTM development and different integration racing and Official Sponsor of Yamaha projects. Factory Racing MotoGP Team. Its exhausts have so far helped 64 World Champions Microsoft Consulting Services participated achieve their titles. in all stages of the projects, which included the assessment of the existing environment Innovative solutions and technologies and and planning future business processes and global brand recognition drive the solutions. Microsoft architects were company's rapid growth, which is based on involved in designing the features that a partner network that spans more than 60 would be best suited to the needs of countries and serves more than 3,000 Akrapovič in terms of performance, partners such as agents, importers, resellers availability, security and scalability and representatives. They offer customers requirements. Microsoft Consulting more than 1,500 actively manufactured Services also cooperated in the integration products and between 3,000 and 4,000 stage of the project where Microsoft products from archive product catalogues. consultants took over the integration of The company’s goal is to increase revenue

27 individual systems while Agito provided product catalogues. Typical users of PIM integration interfaces. work in product, marketing and research departments. “In addition to the right technology, the foundations for creating state-of-the-art Business Portal is the main web-based solutions are professionalism, teamwork communication channel between the and commitment. When developing company and its business partners. It allows Akrapovič Business Platform we've shown partners to access their own basic that we understand their specific information, payment terms, credits and requirements and we’ve built on an existing conditions, product information and excellent relationship with our client. We availability, and the latest news. Partners left nothing up to coincidence and have can also use the portal to submit orders, shown our know-how and our ability to track order status, view invoices, submit execute. The result is a solution that warranty claims and track claim status. provides integrated support for the most Product information is pulled from the important business processes and fulfills Product Information Management system. the most demanding expectations,” said Pricelists, product availability information, Mišo Brus, General Manager, Agito. selling terms, orders and claims are synchronized with the CRM system. The Akrapovič Business Platform solution consists of several closely linked systems: Internet Portal provides a web-based Product Information System (PIM), Business communication channel between the Portal (BP), Internet Portal (IP) and CRM company and its end customers and the system integration. It supports all the most general public. They can use the portal to important business processes: access public product information and management of customers, campaigns, latest news that is stored in the Product opportunities, orders, contracts and Information Management system. payments. The solution also links these processes to research and development Customer Relationship Management processes. represents the central system for managing business partners. It includes support for Product Information Management is the sales and marketing activities by central system for managing all product supporting a number of business processes information and related documents. (customer management, campaign Product information is acquired from the management, opportunity management, back-end SAP system and can be order management, contract management, supplemented with multilingual marketing case management, payment management, materials and technical descriptions, etc.). The system is tightly integrated with images, video, sound, technical blueprints, Business Portal and the back-end SAP homologation certificates, and installation system. SAP is the core business system for instructions. This information can ultimately finance, accounting, financial controlling, be published to different platforms warehouse management and (Extranet or Internet) or used to create manufacturing management. SAP serves as

37 the data source for Product Information supported by the system. The result of this Management and Customer Relationship approach are streamlined content Management systems and provides management and content publishing product, financial and accounting processes. information. Other business entities, such as pricelists, inventory information, Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 and customers, orders, and invoices are also Microsoft Office 2010 brought a fresh, yet regularly synchronized with the CRM familiar experience to Akrapovič users in system. Marketing & Sales. The user experience that combines CRM and Outlook drives Akrapovič Business Platform solution is a user adoption with a familiar and flexible showcase for the latest Microsoft user interface, helping to minimize resource technologies, such as Microsoft SharePoint and training investments. As most users are Server 2010, Microsoft Dynamics CRM already familiar with the Outlook 2011, Microsoft Office 2010 (integration of environment, CRM can be easily learned the CRM system with Outlook), Microsoft and adopted by end users. Many teams, BizTalk 2010, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, especially in the sales department, have Windows Azure and, naturally, the switched from SAP to CRM, where they Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 development have everything they need for their daily platform. work.

“We wanted to take advantage of the Microsoft BizTalk Server 2010 was used to benefits offered by using both on-site integrate SAP, CRM, PIM and the B2B solutions as well as cloud computing. The Portal. It was chosen because it is a mature result is a tightly integrated hybrid enterprise product for integration and environment, where some systems, such as connectivity. BizTalk Server includes more Dynamics CRM and BizTalk are deployed than 25 multi-platform adapters and a on-site, while others are hosted by a robust messaging infrastructure to provide hosting provider. We also utilized Windows connectivity between core systems whether Azure, which means that the solution they are local, remote, hosted or cloud- represents a realistic and gradual migration based. path from the local environment to the cloud," explained Janez Bevk, Engagement Akrapovič chose Windows Azure Content Manager, Microsoft Consulting Services. Delivery Network (CDN) to serve multimedia content and technical SharePoint Server 2010 enabled Akrapovič documents. “Windows Azure was chosen to unify its Internet and Extranet platforms for document storage for a good reason. and to pave the way for deploying Intranet Akrapovič products come with a huge in the future. Currently this platform is amount of marketing multimedia and hosted at an external hosting provider. All technical materials, which is ideal for cloud collaboration processes and workflows that storage. Azure Content Delivery Network serve internal departments, teams, (CDN) enables Akrapovič to ensure its individuals, and external partners are partners all over globe share the same user

47 experience in terms of download speeds,” said Aleš Tancer, CIO, Akrapovič. Benefits The new solution provides Akrapovič with The Windows Azure CDN is one of the better control over Marketing & Sales and building blocks to create fault-tolerant, Research & Development business reliable, and fast applications. By moving processes, connects partners to all content closer to where it is needed and company’s departments and people, and used, Windows Azure CDN improves centralizes all information and content performance by caching content at about products in one place, an important locations closest to customers or users to benefit for all partners. provide the best experience. Content types include web objects (e.g. JPG, CSS, and Before the implementation of the new JavaScript), downloadable objects (media solution, all sales orders were taken by files such as pictures, software, and phone, fax or e-mail and manually entered documents), applications, and other into the SAP system. This process was very components of Internet delivery (DNS, time consuming and required a lot of routes, and database queries). CDN is a administrative work with much space for managed service, located in United States, errors and uncertainty. Administrative Europe, Australia and South America, that is burden was significantly reduced, resulting operated by Microsoft and has a 99.9% in a shorter and more effective sales cycle. monthly SLA. The CDN service supports The company estimates that the internal highly available services such as Windows Marketing & Sales department reduced the Update, and Bing Maps, to serve hundreds amount of administrative work significantly. of millions of devices and users every day. Other benefits include: a shorter sales cycle At the project launch in Q1 of 2012 the first and more responsive marketing services partners were given access to the new (reduced response times, faster delivery, business portal and their feedback was very etc.), faster ordering process, and reduced positive. Akrapovič goal is that all existing time from ordering to distribution. The partners will be comprehended in the new company also reduced the number of business community, which means about errors and is able to provide improved 3.000 partners in more than 60 countries in quality of service with shorter time to Europe, North and South America, Asia and market for new products. Akrapovič now Middle East. The back-office system was also has a powerful marketing tool for initially used by local Sales, Marketing, executing campaigns or sending Research & Development and Quality newsletters. departments in teams of 30 people. In Q3 2012, the same solution will also be By implementing the new solution, deployed in Akrapovič’s American Akrapovič was able to dramatically increase subsidiary. In the future, new Sales business the quality and efficiency of collaboration units are scheduled to be opened in in their partner network and to improve the Europe, Asia and South America, where the control over their internal marketing, sales same back-office solution will be and development processes. The new considered. solution provides a single point of entry

57 and information source for all partners. The manage them. One of the many benefits of company is now able to provide richer and the new information system are also its more up-to-date information to their high availability and the ability to place partners. orders 24/7, which is mandatory for global expansion. By implementing the system, From this perspective of the importance of the company has established a platform partner networks, the Akrapovič Business that will support high growth of their Portal is the most significant sales and business and their global operations. marketing channel. The Business Portal and Customer Relationship Management system also significantly reduced the amount of administrative work and improved our response times. At the same time, Marketing and Sales department can now provide a higher level of service.

“The unified platform greatly improves the insight of our agents into the dealer network and allows us to manage our entire partner network,” said Michel Neven, Sales Director of Akrapovič. Miloš Dežnak, CEO, Akrapovič, added: “Now we have a true 360° view of our partners and related sales and marketing activities.”

By using the information from the on-line ordering system, the company is better positioned to plan their production more accurately to reduce back-orders and warehousing costs. The new solution offers a high level of flexibility that enables the company to implement different business approaches for different partner segments and offer high levels of localization. They are now able to run more accurate analytics, which in turn supports better strategic decisions.

The solution also enables the company to expand its business operations, both from the volume as well as geographical point of view. Agents can easily introduce new dealers, importers, and distributors and

67 Windows Azure Windows Azure is the development, service hosting, and service management environment for the Windows Azure platform. Windows Azure provides developers with on-demand compute and storage to host, scale, and manage web applications on the Internet through Microsoft data centers.

To learn more about the Windows Azure platform, visit: www.windowsazure.com.