Volkswagen Financial Services (VWFS) is the captive finance company for the Volkswagen Group automotive brands in the UK. These include Volkswagen, Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, SEAT, ŠKODA, Audi, Bentley, Lamborghini and Porsche. In addition, the company provides a range of insurance, service and maintenance products as well as business development products for its retailer network.
Over the years VWFS has worked at integrating with Volkswagen Group in the UK and Germany to ensure that responsible finance remains central to its on-going success.
Traditionally, the Volkswagen Group has used SAP software for its back-office systems on a global basis. By 2006, however, the need was becoming evident for VWFS to be able to expand its contract management system (CMS) – in response to growth demands – by taking advantage of the scalability, flexibility and interoperability offered by the SAP platform; the group’s strategic choice for integrated technical solutions.
VWFS’ connection with White Clarke Group (WCG) had been in existence for some nine years and centred on its CMS implementation which covered the complete contract management lifecycle from the point of activation through to maturity – or termination of the contract.
It had proven itself to be robust, stable, and successfully delivered the highest levels of functionality and business agility that VWFS needed as a dynamic growing company.
It therefore seemed obvious to turn to the tried and tested software provider, with its proven track record, for the solution.
Mike Kirby, director at WCG, explained that since SAP did not have a module suitable to meet VWFS’ business requirements, the decision was taken to develop a CMS module, based on SAP’s NetWeaver technology that would be scalable enough to satisfy VWFS’ plans for growth.
“At the time the new system went live in 2009,” Kirby explained, “the SAP-based CMS module dealt with only VWFS’ retail business. We were then asked to extend the current system to include the company’s fleet contracts and fleet maintenance businesses.”
“It was paramount for VWFS to have sufficient scalability in its system. Our team at VWFS started working on this in 2010 – and final development was complete at the end of 2011 with the system going live in 2012.”
Kirby added that the system had been designed to sit within an SAP-centric landscape, able to communicate with both SAP and non-SAP applications using SAP Process Integration (PI) capabilities.
“It had been built as a no-compromise, fully independent SAP-based component. In other words it has not been implemented as an extension to any of the existing SAP modules such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) or Financial Accounting (FI). These would have imposed inherent limitations on the design of the model and its processes.”
Furthermore, the system integrates fully with CALMS, WCG’s point-of-sale (PoS) system and can integrate easily with any other PoS systems that are able to meet its interface definition.
Response from the VWFS business users to the implementation has been extremely positive, including:
- “I can give a better, faster service to my customer”
- “We are able to action many requests from customers in a more timely and efficient way”
- “I can now get a better understanding of what products our customer has with us by having it all on one system”
- “The system is much more friendly and easier to access”
Kirby added that the implementation included VWFS’ operations in the UK and Ireland and covered all finance products such as lease purchase, hire purchase, personal contract purchase, retail contract hire, fleet contract hire – and fixed price servicing.
He is especially proud of the fact that his experienced team delivered the implementation on time in accordance with an ambitious program plan.
WCG is the world's leader in end-to-end automotive & asset finance software solutions and consulting services. Its award-winning software platform offers the end-to-end solutions of choice for Automotive Finance and Asset Finance companies in 27 countries around the globe.