Challenges

• Replace an end-of-life HP server environment with an integrated hardware and software solution that accelerates database performance, improves customer service, and enhances business revenue opportunities in the company’s automobile and automotive parts sales and service shop floor departments
• Maximize job workflow across all three departments and eliminate database interrogation and population performance bottlenecks—which created queues of dissatisfied customers in car showrooms, parts sales offices, and servicing garages—
• Acquire the ability to report automotive sales, customer leads, parts inventory stock, maintenance schedules, and workflow summaries to executive management
• Increase the number of appointments that automotive service advisors can make per day—which enhances revenue opportunities—by reducing the time spent submitting service requests to a database
• Enhance vehicle sales opportunities by reducing the time it takes to process customer vehicle options, which was done using paper forms that must be manually uploaded into the system
• Accelerate end-of-month financial closing by removing hardware bottlenecks, enabling staff to spend more time working strategically and identifying new business opportunities

Solutions

• Deployed Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2, operating on Oracle Linux to power Al Jomaih Automotive’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) system, which is based on Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer, to accelerate workflow across three distinct automotive business lines
• Removed business delays for management and IT leads caused by dealing with separate vendors for hardware, operating systems, and applications, by selecting Oracle as a single-source supplier for an integrated environment
• Improved database performance for up to 1,800 business users by migrating a 1.1 TB dataset to Oracle Exadata
• Reduced the time it takes for service advisors to open a service request in peak hours, from 30 minutes to a few seconds, enabling more customer appointments each day and increasing revenue opportunities
• Reduced car sales specifications submissions time, from three minutes for each customer vehicle option, to two minutes to process, print, and receive an entire customer form—accelerating sales throughput and customer satisfaction
• Enhanced company sales and performance reporting by 9,000% through Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer reports
• Created executive reports related to service traffic inside and outside workshops, as well as service requests broken down by district and site
• Streamlined end-of-month closing by automating closing processes in seconds, using Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer
• Ensured an estimated 5% to 10% overall business growth, year-over-year, going forward, thanks to greater productivity and customer throughput in salesrooms and service centers, coupled with greater workflow visibility

Why Oracle

Al Jomaih Automotive had already used Oracle Database, Oracle enterprise resource planning applications, and Oracle Business Intelligence Discoverer for years. It was happy with its database and software functionality, but was not satisfied with hardware performance. Since company management was impressed with Oracle’s expertise, experience, and presence in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East, it chose the company to create a single-vendor architecture, based on Oracle Exadata.

“We considered other vendors, as management is very strict about mandating a thorough bidding process that evaluates more than one proposal. We contacted our legacy server vendor, and other vendors, but we were always inclined toward Oracle Exadata because it is a unique solution that delivers outstanding performance improvements to automotive sales and servicing branches,” said Nezar Shehabuddeen, senior Oracle ERP consultant and project manager, Al Jomaih Automotive.

Implementation Process

Al Jomaih Automotive purchased Oracle Exadata Database Machine X2-2 in July 2011 and went live in March 2012. Implementation took two months longer than anticipated because the company’s existing environment proved unstable and required remedial work during the migration. After securing the old systems, Al Jomaih Automotive began actively deploying its Oracle Exadata environment.