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A simple SMS is all it takes for the management and field workers at Asia Motor Works to query information related to product availability, inventory levels or outstanding collections
By Srikanth RP, NC, December 9, 2009, 1200 hrs
As one of the fastest growing companies in the heavy commercial vehicle segment, Asia Motor Works (AMW) faces heavy competition from well-established players in the market. As an upstart, the company relies on innovation to compete with the majors.
Unlike manufacturing companies that manufacture their own components, the company sources components from suppliers such as Cummins, Valeo and Meritor. This innovation, when coupled with the company’s engineering skills, helps the company reduce the time to market and lower the cost of making trucks.
To provide appropriate service to the end customer, the firm has a network of over 35 dealers and 130 service centers across India. Being a relatively new entrant when compared to majors such as the Tatas, the company wanted its field force to be more productive and equipped with updated information to serve the customer better. The company’s biggest challenge—the field force received information through e-mails.
 “In the absence of access to updated information, our field force had to telephone the respective departments to ask for details regarding the stock availability of a particular model or the status of an order or the outstanding bill status for a particular dealer. This had a direct impact on the productivity,” explains Umesh Mehta, CIO, Asia Motor Works.
To make sure that its field force could access or receive relevant information on-the-go, the firm needed a mobile solution. While the firm had a choice of giving its field force smart phones or BlackBerry’s, it decided that it needed a solution that could work across all mobile phones. Accordingly, in the first quarter of 2009, Mehta’s team started work on developing a solution that could push and pull information from ERP using a simple SMS.
SMS pulls and pushes diverse corporate information
The timing too was apt as the market was caught in the throes of a recession. The company used the available time in its IT team to develop the mobile application. In a period of just three months, the IT team developed an application that allows the field force to pull information by sending an SMS from a normal mobile phone.
Using predefined keywords, a person in the field force can send a request for information, and receive an update through a return SMS. For example, an area sales manager can send a keyword OST (Outstanding) followed by a dealer code, to receive information pertaining to dealer accounts receivables.
“Based on user requirements, we have defined over 20 keywords that allow employees to receive information related to sales, production, leads, inventory details, outstanding collections or availability of a particular model,” declares Mehta.
The firm has used the same platform to even push information in the form of information capsules as per the defined schedule. Every morning, before the start of a business day, employees who have subscribed to a particular alert (say production, sales, collection, outstanding, shipment notification for trucks and spare parts, inventory levels) receive this information via SMS. This facility has also been extended to dealers. As soon as an order is processed, dealers receive updates about their order via SMS.
Transformed Field Force
Today, thanks to the ready access to information, the firm has been able to empower and transform its field force. As the field force has accurate information according to different parameters, it has helped the executives on the field to improve the quality of their service. The results in the initial six month period show the potential of this solution. Productivity has improved by over 25 percent and collections have already improved by 20 percent, while follow-up calls to departments are almost non-existent now.
Working around constraints is part of every Indian company’s DNA. This trait is clearly seen in the case of AMW, which has avoided using expensive smart phones, but instead has used the power of a simple SMS to radically re-engineer its business process.
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