Driving productivity through the creation of an online Dealer Portal
Completion Timeline: 12 months
Introduction
In 2019, Tough Dog realised completion of a journey to transform their inefficient customer relation management system for their over 1000 dealer network nationwide. This case study serves to outline how Tough Dog, together with the team at PegboardCo., were able to effectively eliminate time wasted by approx. 18%, and drive sales volumes by approx. 13%.
About Tough Dog
Tough Dog is an Australian owned company suspension industry leader, who supply and manufacture high quality suspension products to the domestic and international 4x4 markets. Tough Dog has been “making tracks across the world” since 1985 and have grown rapidly as a result of the excellent reputation their quality gear commands.
Today, Tough Dog products are sought all over the world, and the distribution network spans 42 countries around the world. With 35 years in business, and a combined experience of over 100 years, Tough Dog now boasts over 1100 total dealers, and 600 active dealers worldwide.
Problem
Tough Dog utilised various systems to manually enter and receive information to its dealer network. Dealers are manually emailed invoices, marketing collateral and don't have the ability to view availability to of individual products on Sybiz, instead having to manually lookup product information in a PDF document or on the public facing website. This grew to be an issue as Tough Dog continued to grow both nationally and internationally in its presence and wider dealer network. This begged for a centralised system which integrated data from multiple systems and endpoints to offer a simple place to view and learn about all Tough Dog information in one place.
What Tough Dog looked for to resolve this issue
Frustrated with the difficulty and cost of a manual process coupled with the poor connectivity between Tough Dog's core internal systems, they acknowledged that something desperately needed to change. They began looking for a way forward to effectively futureproof the business with a digital transformation to put them ahead competition. Tough Dog approached PegboardCo., highlighting several key areas;
- Flexible and productive workflows for internal staff to utilize their work for the business logic
- Connect sales, marketing and core business systems in one integrated place
- Ability to search and view product information, as well as search suspension kit using vehicle information
- Ability for dealers to draft and submit an order of stock as well as edit delivery information and pay online statements/invoices online
- Facilitate live tracking and reporting of sales activity
- Tough Dog staff to track dealer sales, financial status and view any dealer information and notes
- Reduce the administrative costs and time commitment involved with using multiple various systems
- Improvements in overall presentation of the website
- A viable return on investment for the organisation
- Security and integrity of overall system
The PegboardCo. Solution
Shaped through an initial in-depth consultation and several scoping workshops, the Tough Dog dealer portal was built using PegboardCo.'s SILicone technology to harmoniously connect core business systems into one integrated portal for real time reporting. PegboardCo. customised this to suit Tough Dog's specific requirements discussed in consultations, enabling Tough Dog's new portal to have the following features:
User Management, Information and On-Boarding
- Retrieve Dealer Accounts, Contacts. Update Dealers, Add / Update Contacts.
- New Dealer Portal Design
- New user security model and management
- Dealer Group management access
- Staff access portal
- Dealer Orders and Tracking
- Search for all individual products and all suspension kits using vehicle information
- Ability for dealers to place a general and international order push directly on Tough Dog's internal Sybiz system
- Ability to manually add new order or import excel spreadsheet of orders
- Set delivery preferences and mark orders to be picked up by freight forwarded
- Ability to view invoices, statements and place payments.
Integration
- Integration with Moodle for access to online training modules for both dealer and Tough Dog staff
- Integration to marketing collateral, newsletters and other content to download and print ready marketing documentsIntegrate portal with Sybiz system to retrieve invoices and dealer incentive targets
- Integrate Tough Dog website with Sybiz system to automatically update the dealer locator on the website and provide retail pricing and availability of stock
- Portal integrated with Live Chat widget
Warranty claim
- Submit an online warranty claim form Pre-filled the form with the Dealers information to speed up this process
- Upload supporting files and images onto a central server.
- View a list previously submitted claims and their status.
- Tough Dog staff to view a list of claims for a Dealer and update the status of a claim
Account statement and invoices
- View and download a list of individual statements (outstanding and paid for the last 12 months)
- Pay invoices using online payment gateway
Reporting/Dashboard of dealers
- Ability for Tough Dog staff to quickly view dealer information, financial staus, notes and sales report for each dealer
Ease of use
- Seamlessly integrates with current systems
- Easy for dealers to access, update and view
Overall project outcome for Tough Dog
- Increased ability for staff to access and manage information 42% faster
- Effectively eliminate time wasted by approx. 18%
- Drive sales volumes by approx. 13%.
- Enhanced internal reporting for Tough Dog
- Strict Project management KPIS met
- Delivered project on time and on budget
- Delivered ROI in less than 12 months