Do you get excited waiting for a package to arrive? Maybe you ordered a spiffy new outfit online, or you’re waiting for your at-home pharmacy delivery. Maybe you sent your 19 year old a college care package, or you ordered yourself a fun kitchen appliance. Maybe a new bedroom set or the items for your new nursery. Whatever you ordered, it’s exciting when the doorbell rings and you can sign for your package. The suspense of cutting open the packing tape, digging through the Styrofoam peanuts and pulling out your new item is exhilarating.
Did you ever think about the effort that goes into managing the trucks that deliver these packages? The vehicles that many companies use represent a vital business asset and a major investment that must be managed effectively in order to ensure that operations are executed efficiently. That’s where ARI comes in. ARI is the largest fleet management services company in the world, and in conjunction with its partners, accounts for more than 2 million vehicles worldwide. ARI’s services are essential to companies looking to make decisions that save money and build revenue, ensuring that their business objectives, like the delivery of goods and services, are always executed with improved productivity at the lowest cost possible.
For many years ARI relied on an in-house ETL solution to collect and analyze data from the fleets they managed, but in recent years the amount of collected data has grown exponentially. “We want to provide customers with the best possible solutions to leverage the available data so they can uncover actionable information that helps them operate their fleets more efficiently,” said Bob White, SVP of Client and Fleet Services at ARI. The company also wanted to use the collected data to improve its own customer support. Maintenance management for the entire lifecycle of a vehicle can involve more than 14,000 various data points, including everything from information on minor repairs to regular preventive maintenance information or manufacturer updates and recalls.
So naturally, when ARI decided to overhaul their aging data warehouse environment, they chose SAP HANA. After completing a proof of concept of SAP HANA, ARI rolled out a comprehensive data strategy that included SAP HANA, SAP Data Services software, SAP Information Steward Software, and SAP BusinessObjects BI solutions. The implementation lasted a short 3 weeks and the benefits were immediate.
ARI significantly strengthened their business strategy with SAP HANA; they are now able to perform deeper data analysis in less than four seconds (previously this was a manual process that took over 24 hours). They also increased overall efficiency in call centers and improved first-time call resolution resulting in higher customer satisfaction. “We have a 360-degree view of the data with our SAP solution,” says Steve Haindl, EVP Technology and Innovation at ARI. “We can see what’s working, where the opportunities are, and what customers no longer need. We can also tailor conversations about requirements to the interested party: CEO, fleet manager, or mechanic. All of this helps us to drive revenue, but most important, it helps us to keep our customers happy.” Using the data from their SAP HANA run analyses, ARI receives an abundance of information ranging from how a car is being driven, to fuel card information, accident data, telematics, maintenance data and miles per gallon. The information can then be benchmarked with a league table to improve fleet driving behavior to keep the roads safe and decrease insurance premiums. ARI can now work strategically with their customers to solve business challenges by mining the data.
ARI’s Director of Information Management, Bill Powell explained that SAP HANA was so impressive that it managed to attract the firm away from competing providers, like Oracle. He stated, “There was a sea of information coming in and it could take up to two days to pull together, which affected our service levels. In-memory HANA means we can answer questions in seconds.” ARI’s Keith Allen added: “Our goal has been to drive greater efficiencies
. The business can ask questions [of the data] and get responses directly. Customers can also build their own dashboards. It is self-service BI.”
With the speed and depth of information provided by SAP HANA, ARI has transformed their IT infrastructure and business strategy. They are helping their customers to solve complex problems, combining business insight and optimal lifecycle analysis to drive vehicle fleet efficiency up and push costs down. With business fleets on the road and running at their full potential, all shipments and services, including those containing a new washer and drier, birthday gifts and holiday cheese baskets, will arrive on time to put a smile on the face of the recipient.
Interested in more details on this story? Take a look at our ARI Customer Journey for a holistic view of this story. Also, check out the full video testimonial with ARI.
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