Mitsubishi Fuso first in Australia with online parts catalogue

Customer Story

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Australia has partnered with IBS Automotive to develop Australia’s first online automotive parts catalogue.

Mitsubishi Fuso Truck & Bus Australia (MFTBA) is the first autonomous division of Mitsubishi Fuso Truck and Bus Company Japan. A truly international manufacturer formed from the alliance of DaimlerChrysler and the Mitsubishi group of companies.

MFTBA is responsible for the distribution of wholesale Mitsubishi Fuso truck and bus products throughout Australia. The company is therefore structured to provide wholesale replacement parts, technical training and service support to authorised MFTBA dealers and their customers within Australia.

MFTBA is firmly focused on providing high quality service to its customers and the Australian truck market. This has earned MFTBA a reputation for being more responsive than its competitors and for being faster to market with more innovative products.

Key Challenges

Fuso relied on a CD-based parts catalogue to promote its parts to dealerships across Australia. This CD-based tool posed several challenges for MFTBA’s Parts Division:

• CD-based catalogue was quickly becoming outdated.

• Lack of support from existing catalogue provider frustrated MFTBA staff and associated dealerships.

• Constant delay in updating catalogue and distributing new CDs to dealerships Australia-wide, risked loss of revenue to non-genuine parts suppliers. 

• Subscription costs prohibitive for dealerships.

These issues were beginning to impact on MFTBA’s ability to provide the outstanding customer service that their clients were accustomed to.

Why IBS?

Fuso has held a long standing relationship with IBS Automotive. Having engaged IBS in the past to design and successfully implement a complete ERP software solution, MFTBA were confident that IBS had the expertise to develop an advanced online solution to replace the unmanageable and outdated CD-based catalogue.

IBS welcomed the challenge to develop a unique solution to overcome MFTBA’s issues and significantly improve the way parts’ information was communicated to the industry.

Solution – IBS Electronic Parts Catalogue (FEPC) for Fuso

In addressing MFTBA’s concerns, IBS determined that a shift from a CD-based tool to an online parts catalogue was necessary.

IBS Electronic Parts Catalogues (EPC) is a new standard for the automotive parts industry which allows you to access your EPC by “surfing” the web. Information is updated in real-time from the distributor’s server, with changes made by the distributor being instantly available to the dealers, thereby increasing data integrity and eliminating costly ordering errors.

The online EPC developed by IBS presents parts information in a user-friendly and visual format, such as:

• Access to current and accurate information in a robust and efficient package.

• Intuitive navigation and catalogue features.

• Ease and speed of looking up parts using the search facility and high quality images.

• Web based access requiring username and password.

• VIN sensitive.

• Ability to attach user comments to a catalogue, model or item.

• Capacity to add items to a shopping list which links back to the detailed information page for each of the selected parts.

• Shopping lists can be confirmed and forwarded to the distributor or dealer either in real-time or in batch format.

Benefits

The EPC provides MFTBA with the following benefits:

• A unique real-time interface to Fuso’s computer system provides the industry’s first EPC with real time updates.

• Up to the minute pricing, stock availability and information on all current and superseded spare parts.

• Dealerships no longer have the costly and frustrating wait for updates on CDs to be mailed out to them. 

Results

By working closely with MFTBA, IBS was able to develop a state of the art online EPC which has revolutionised the automotive industry by providing real-time information.

Fuso provided a great deal of input during the development process to ensure that the solution would meet dealers’ and customers’ needs.

Their catalogue was branded as the Fuso Electronic Parts Catalogue (FEPC) and has achieved the following results: 

• Dealers and customers are kept up-to-date.

• Dealerships are ordering genuine Mitsubishi Fuso parts in lieu of grey market parts.

• Market share of Mitsubishi Fuso parts has increased.

• Significant cost savings.

• Improved customer service.

• Seamless integration with the IBS Automotive ERP solution.

Future

Mitsubishi Fuso and IBS have a unique relationship which works as a true partnership, allowing both organisations to develop ground breaking innovative solutions which deliver practical results to the industry.

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