ADP support the Wellington Motor Group to achieve growth

The Wellington Motor Group, a Nissan dealer based in Taunton, Somerset, has operated in the automotive business for 30 years. The business has continued to expand through acquisition and is now responsible for a Nissan territory covering the area of Somerset to Devon, a Renault dealership, a national fleet company and the largest Triumph motorcycle territory in the UK.

Autoline has been used by Wellington Motors for over 10 years and has significantly improved the day-to-day running of the dealerships, enabling the management of 600 vehicles and motorcycles, workshops at 5 dealerships and parts departments across the group - all integrated into the Autoline accounting module. We spoke to Tom Philip, Group ICT Manager about the use of Autoline within their dealership.

"Autoline is at the heart of the dealerships and to achieve the greatest return on investment, it must be used efficiently and effectively, I am happy that it has proven to be adaptable to the diverse and expanding requirements of the group and guarantees the maximum uptime possible with added assurance of ADPs support and services."

Despite the recent growth and continued IT investment; additional resources have not been required. ADP presented a different approach to the Wellington Motor Group, offering HSP (Hardware Service Provision), which takes into account the financial and resource costs of managing their own server.

Tom continued, "It was becoming a struggle to keep up with IT demands placed upon the dealerships. Upgrades of hardware to accommodate our new acquisitions, additional software requirements and integration between the accounts systems took me away from my day-to-day responsibilities. We also had to account for all the associated costs and, of course, the downtime that seriously impacted on the dealerships, especially in relation to the service we were able to offer our customers."

ADP has created a highly resilient, secure hosting centre infrastructure. On visiting this facility Tom commented, "I was impressed with the professionalism that surrounded me; it was definitely a state-of-the-art facility with comprehensive managed facilities, supported round the clock by a team of qualified technicians. I saw the backup and resilience processes and I felt very reassured.

The HSP service offered by ADP ensures the focus remains on the customer. An end-to-end managed and supported system, which allows me to focus on dealership activities rather than those of IT. A significant benefit is that I can now be more pro-active about IT requirements and fit them around my time. Maximised uptime of Autoline is critical to ensure that the Wellington Motor Group can exceed our customers’ expectations. Without the system, the business can not function and provide the information and the service our customers have grown to expect from us." Full access to application and system performance monitoring over the Extranet is provided to Wellington Motor Group. Tom continues, "Although we appear to have a ‘loss of control’ over the group IT infrastructure, I would say that I actually have increased control and visibility, especially through the monitoring of server statistics. Detailed reports can be produced on license usage, allowing greater predictability of IT costs as well as justification on new licenses requests, promoting a more efficient use of Autoline for users, yet providing return on investment for my directors.

The Wellington Motor Group are just one from a number of customers taking advantage of this critical and high level hosting service, which provides greater security, better performance and a lower cost.

"The service provided by ADP has been excellent", explains Tom, "I have been totally satisfied with the service and particularly impressed with the pro-active approach taken. With alert emails automatically sent out and re-directed to my mobile, I am always fully informed of any situation that may arise and am happy in the knowledge that, even before I get to work, problems will be addressed and resolved."

Tom explains the value HSP brings to the Wellington Motor Group, "As HSP has little initial outlay it provides us with flexibility to deliver additional computer resource whenever required in the future and ensures the peace of mind that an automated effective disaster recovery policy is in place, keeping our business critical data safe. For Wellington Motor Group, these are key business requirements." Looking to the future, Tom explains, "Forward planning is very important for controlled growth to our group. ADP allows us to budget, yet be flexible to meet our future needs". As the Wellington Motor Group continues to expand, ADP offers the latest technology, safe with the knowledge that HSP is both totally secure and is flexible to grow with the business and meet changing demands without the need to invest in more servers or upgrades.