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DaimlerChrysler

DaimlerChrysler Services (DCS) is the financial services arm of the DaimlerChrysler Group. In 2003, one in three DaimlerChrysler vehicles sold worldwide was financed or leased through DCS, which is now the world’s largest financer of commercial vehicles.
   

“The needs of the DCS business demanded a more scalable and flexible infrastructure. SCC came up with a complete end-to-end solution that fitted our needs perfectly”

Although the company’s recent financial performance has been very strong, competition is intense and DCS has to work hard to win new business from the dealer network. Rapid time-to-market for new financial services products, coupled with the ability to respond more quickly to dealers’ requests for quotes, are among the prime success factors.

IT plays a key role in supporting the business in these areas. In particular, the recent implementation of an adaptive infrastructure by DaimlerChrysler Services IT (DCSIT), the company’s shared-services provider, has boosted business agility significantly.

 “The needs of the DCS business demanded a more scalable, flexible infrastructure to which new capabilities could be added more or less on demand. With the current infrastructure being significantly underutilised, cost reduction was also an important priority,” explained Dirk Marzluf, CTO of DCSIT.

Team Work

Two vendors, HP and IBM, attempted to win the business. According to Dirk, HP’s success was due in large part to its willingness to listen to the customer’s needs rather than push a standard solution.

“HP and its channel partner, SCC, came up with a complete end-to-end solution that fitted our needs perfectly,” he commented. “They were also able to convince us of their ability to implement the new infrastructure within a very challenging time frame of four months.”

In addition, HP Financial Services helped create a compelling business case to support the solution, encompassing delayed payment, instant Capacity on Demand (iCOD) and buy-back of existing HP equipment.

SCC and HP set up a joint account management team at the presales stage. Services provided included sizing and design of the new infrastructure, with SCC later assuming most of the responsibility for technical implementation.

Working together with DCSIT, HP and SCC installed a complete adaptive enterprise solution including a UNIX-based infrastructure distributed across two UK sites, with servers, storage and backup products. The second site is used not only for integration and development but also as a backup site to provide business continuity in the event of a disaster.

“We built an excellent cooperative team, which was vital to achieving a successful implementation and avoiding delays. Whenever a problem occurred, we could rely on HP and SCC to step in and do everything possible to ensure the project stayed on track,” said Dirk Marzluf.

The project involved consolidating the number of servers from thirty to two, with an HP 9000 rp8420 Server at the main site and an HP rp7420 Server at the backup site. Flexibility is provided through a combination of hard and virtual partitioning and through the use of HP StorageWorks EVA 5000 systems in a storage area network (SAN) configuration.

Also, should extra computing resources be required, additional iCOD processors can immediately be bought online. The solution also includes HP OpenView for enterprise system management and backup, together with HP Business Continuity Services (BCS).

Great Flexibility

DCS now has a very flexible infrastructure that, in combination with its Phoenix core business system, supports the rapid creation, sale and management of financial products. This is extremely important in a market that demands great flexibility on the part of financial service providers in order to fulfil the needs of different customers.

Furthermore, the performance and availability characteristics of this infrastructure ensure that dealers can always connect with DCS’s systems and obtain quotes in real time, making it less likely that they will turn to an alternative provider. Feedback suggests that the new infrastructure has had a significant positive impact on dealer satisfaction.

Improved Performance

 “The new infrastructure is doing exceptionally well, with a performance improvement of some 50 per cent for batch jobs and online processes alike,” said Peter Barnes, Data Centre Manager at DCSIT. “This means not only an improved service for dealers but also higher productivity for the end-user.”

Cost Reductions

According to Peter Barnes, regular month-end and day-end processing is now completed in half the time, as are system backups. Tasks that were once postponed until the weekend are instead completed overnight. As a result, the entire DCS operation is speeded up and orders are processed much more quickly than before.

At the same time, server consolidation has led to significant cost reductions, estimated to amount to £500,000 (€700,000) over a three year period. The success of the project has led to a strategic partnership between DCSIT, HP and SCC. HP and SCC are currently supplying consultancy and training services as well as additional Intel-based servers and EVA5000/Storage upgrades.