'Richco Harley-Davidson' is an authorized dealer for a major global motorcycles brand. And they is not just about selling motorcycles, they have an excellent parts and accessories department where you can find all the latest clothes and accessories. Besides their location in Chiang Mai, 'Richo' operates 3 different popup stores and sells through their online shop.
They manage more than 100k SKUs and thousands of customer vehicles, And they don’t just sell vehicles; they also offer merchandise, maintenance, repair services, and have pop-up stores.
'Company H' used to operate on a quite rigid DMS (dealership management software) that was limited in features, difficult to use and expensive in license costs. They wanted to change because they saw the benefits of using one software for many aspects of their business
Of course, Odoo can address these pain points with its comprehensive features, lower cost, and, most importantly, a team of implementers who understand your business problems and situations.
The Mission: Modernize dealership management system using Odoo
Odoo comes with an multitude of apps that we used to cover most relevant business processes of the motorbike dealership:
Used Odoo Apps | Description |
Employees Attendances Planning Time Off | Using Odoo's HR apps to do shift planning, track attendances and managing the employees of the dealership. |
Field Service Project and Timesheets | Using the field service app, we can facilitate the processes in the workshop i.e. repairments or maintenance services. |
CRM Sales Point of Sale | We can track the whole sales lifecycle within Odoo including after sales activities. |
Inventory | Managing over 100,000 SKUs with complex locations setup. |
Fleet | Using the fleet app we can manage vehicle history of the customer's bikes. |
Website and E-Commerce | Odoo's website module and e-commerce features are used to have set up a completely new website where we can use the product data from the ERP system. |
Accounting and Dashboards | Accounting app is used as full featured accounting app that fully integrates all processes. The Dashboard functionally of Odoo is used to set up industry specific views. |
Manage Workshop in Odoo
Odoo's Field Service and Inventory modules provide a comprehensive solution for managing a workshop in a motorbike dealership, streamlining operations and enhancing customer satisfaction.
- Scheduling and Dispatching: The Field Service module allows you to efficiently schedule and dispatch technicians for repairs and maintenance. You can create service orders directly from customer requests, assign them to available technicians, and set priority levels based on urgency. This ensures that your workshop operates smoothly and that customers receive timely service.
- Work Orders Management: Each service order can be transformed into a work order, detailing the tasks to be performed, required parts, and estimated time for completion. Technicians can access these work orders via mobile devices, allowing them to update progress in real-time, log hours worked, and communicate with the workshop manager.
- Customer Communication: The module facilitates communication with customers by sending notifications about service status, appointment reminders, and follow-up messages. This enhances customer engagement and helps build long-term relationships.
Point of Sales for clothing and accessories
Odoo's Point of Sale (POS) module is an invaluable tool for Harley Davidson motorbike dealerships looking to enhance their over-the-counter selling experience for clothes and accessories. This user-friendly system streamlines the sales process, allowing staff to efficiently manage transactions directly from the sales floor. With its intuitive interface, employees can quickly ring up purchases, apply discounts, and process payments, ensuring a smooth and enjoyable shopping experience for customers.
One of the standout features of Odoo's POS module is its ability to integrate loyalty programs and membership management seamlessly. Dealerships can easily set up loyalty cards that reward customers for their purchases, encouraging repeat business and fostering brand loyalty. The system tracks customer points and rewards, allowing staff to apply discounts or special offers at checkout, which can be particularly appealing for Harley Davidson enthusiasts who value their connection to the brand.
Customizations for Dealership Management in Odoo
- Vehicle Management and History
They have to keep records of which customer purchased a motorcycle with a Vehicle specific information and have to record maintenance history, Including follow up with the customer (driver) to ensure they complete the inspections and renew the insurance on time.
We can use Odoo's standard functions by using ‘Fleet Models’ to manage this business situation, without the need for customization or coding, which helps reduce redundancy in setup. And by linking vehicles with sales, purchases, and contacts, we can record the history of inspections, repairs, and drivers (in cases of ownership changes). This allows us to review the complete history using the fleet and vehicle modules.
- Complex Invoicing to cover Insurance expenses
In the case of a vehicle accident and need to purchase parts for repairs, including the cost of labor, Richco Harley-Davidson will create an invoice to cover the expenses, with the costs split between the insurance company and the vehicle owner.
- Maintenance History and Cost Tracking per motorbike
All services, all revenue and expenses will be tracked in the system, so that the service center will be able to instantly access the repair and part replacement history and the management can analyse the profit and loss.
- Insurance renewals and scheduled inspections
Odoo has an interesting feature called automation that can create activities, send emails, and perform other tasks based on customizable conditions. We have utilized this feature to track insurance renewals and scheduled inspections by configuring automation to generate activities under sales orders for the employees responsible for managing these customers.
- Parts and labor for maintenance
Due to the differences in vehicles, each inspection or maintenance requires varying parts and labor. To streamline and simplify this process, we recommend using the 'Quotation Template' feature. This allows customers to group parts according to each vehicle type. When creating a sales order for an inspection, selecting the motorcycle model will automatically display the necessary parts and labor costs. This can be used alongside the Field Service module to assign tasks to maintenance technicians for the care and repair of the specific vehicle and link to the HR module for managing employees and leave requests.
- Off-site activities and pop-up stores
Their marketing department regularly engages with customers and riders through activities such as test rides, open houses, and pop-up stores at various malls. They manage everything through the 'Project module,' a basic feature of Odoo, which ensures that all involved employees are informed and can start working immediately. This way, everyone knows their responsibility.
They also use additional features such as POS, managing multiple pop-up stores, offering rewards points and promotions for regular customers, and providing employee-discounted products including Purchasing, sales, accounting, and e-commerce.
Hosting on Odoo.sh (Cloud)
Richco Harley-Davidson is using the PAAS platform Odoo.sh which makes the operation of the server environment easy.
Staging Serviers
To test new feature with your own data.
Back Up
Daily incremental backups.
Database
Live Replication of All data, no lost data.
DNS & Routes
Configure customer routes and let us handle DNS.
Automated testing
Every commit is deployed and tested instantly.
Staging Serviers
To test new feature with your own data.
Back Up
Daily incremental backups.
Database
Live Replication of All data, no lost data.
DNS & Routes
Configure customer routes and let us handle DNS.
Automated testing
Every commit is deployed and tested instantly.
24/7 Monitor
Monitor and Maintains all your server.
You own runbot
Test each feature-branch in a click.
Email Gateway
Unlimited email gateways, Auto configured.
SSH Access
Shell access to dev, staging and production containers.
Top Notch hosting
Perfectly optimized installation, great hardware.
24/7 Monitor
Monitor and Maintains all your server.
You own runbot
Test each feature-branch in a click.
Email Gateway
Unlimited email gateways, Auto configured.
SSH Access
Shell access to dev, staging and production containers.
Top Notch hosting
Perfectly optimized installation, great hardware.
Our Quickstarter Approach
We used a phased and agile approach. In such a complex project, it is very important to do the implementation step-by-step and make sure to get the users onboard as soon as possible. That is why we approached the project in phases:
- Phase 1: Focus on HR processes (Employee, Time Off, Shift Planning, Communication)
- Phase 2: Operational processes and POS
- Phase 3: Accounting
Furthermore we work with the concept of using the “parking lot” to move nice-to-have features to a later stage. This helps to focus on the most important tasks and make sure to get to a Go-Live instead of dragging the project endlessly. Even though this project had a lot of special requirements for the dealership and workshop management, our strategy helped us to deliver the full scope of implementation by using 85% of standard features and only 15% custom developments.
This is just one of the projects we have successfully completed, leveraging our business understanding and collaboration with our clients. We are happy to provide consultation to help you tailor Odoo to your business needs with minimal customization, ensuring the project is completed on time and within a reasonable budget.
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