EDS and General Motors` (GM) Saturn Division have jointly announced that EDS will migrate Saturn`s US-based retail facilities from a distributed Dealer Management System (DMS) environment to an EDS-hosted application service provider (ASP) environment - making GM the first US-based automotive company to move an entire division`s retail community to the more efficient and effective ASP model.
EDS, Saturn`s primary IT provider, will migrate the current Saturn Retail Systems applications suite, which 8 500 users access daily for sales, service, parts, accounting, data mining and reporting, to a centrally hosted ASP environment. Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
Today US Saturn retailers own and maintain servers that reside inside the retail facilities. By moving to an ASP delivery model, Saturn is moving the burden of owning and maintaining these servers from its retail facilities to EDS, which will maintain several midrange servers that will support Saturn remotely from an EDS Systems Management Centre.
EDS will provide systems and software administration and maintenance, data backups and telephone and field technical support for Saturn. Along with the new infrastructure solution, retailers will also receive additional features such as network-wide e-mail capabilities, managed Internet access and centralised credit bureau access.
"Simplifying the systems environment allows retail teams to focus more on selling vehicles and building customer relationships - which is what they specialise in," said Marty Raymond, Saturn`s director of retail strategies, systems and training. "EDS has proven its ability to adapt to the demands of an ever-changing IT landscape with industry-leading retail IT solutions that continue to safely and securely support our highly innovative, demanding and successful group of automotive retailers."
According to a recent Forrester Group TechStrategy Research white paper titled Connecting Dealership Computing, the move to remote, ASP-delivered DMS solutions is about to accelerate as automobile manufacturers expose dealers to remote computing.
"Saturn is consistently at or near the top in JD Powers` sales and service customer satisfaction surveys. We attribute part of that satisfaction to retailers` innovative use of technology and the extremely high level of IT integration between Saturn and its retailers," said Karen Blunden, president of EDS` Automotive Retail Group. "As one of the more innovative and forward-thinking automotive divisions, Saturn continues to set the benchmark for all others to follow when it comes to modern, robust, dealership IT infrastructure and systems."
EDS has been Saturn`s primary IT provider for product engineering, financial, plant floor and factory-to-retailer systems since the late 1980s. Server consolidation efforts in the new contract will begin in the fourth quarter. EDS is the premier provider of leading-edge technology solutions to automotive retailers in the US. The company currently supports more 6 700 automotive retail customers in 67 countries.
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EDS, the leading global services company, provides strategy, implementation, business transformation and operational solutions for clients managing the business and technology complexities of the digital economy. EDS brings together the world`s best technologies to address critical client business imperatives. It helps clients eliminate boundaries, collaborate in new ways, establish their customers` trust and continuously seek improvement. EDS, with its subsidiaries, serves the world`s leading companies and governments in 60 countries. EDS reported revenues of $21.5 billion in 2001. The company`s stock is traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE: EDS) and the London Stock Exchange. Learn more at www.eds.com.