Site MapKing Toyota
Citrix Infrastructure Facilitates Deployment of Toyota Dealer Management System
King Toyota has been serving the Hutt Valley for over twenty five years and has built a name that is synonymous with superior customer service and product excellence.
The dealership is currently split over three sites. The Petone site is dedicated to superior vehicle servicing, whilst the Lower and Upper Hutt dealerships provide the full range of services - new and pre-owned vehicle sales, vehicle servicing and automotive parts sales.
The Challenge: Streamline IT and Improve Communication
David Clarke, CEO for King Toyota, found he was faced with two very pressing issues relating to the management of the existing Dealer Management System (DMS). Firstly, the running of the business was being seriously hampered by the system's inability to produce timely and accurate financial information. Secondly, the current DMS was approaching its end of life and a new hardware platform was needed to roll out the new version.
“The new DMS would provide live data to all the company's users, so it was essential that the proposed solution could seamlessly connect all three sites and allow us to maximise this feature,” says David. “I am strongly focused on people and their development, a major part of that is communication and having the branches connected with everybody having secure access to the Microsoft tools has been brilliant.”
“A long association with the team at Datasouth meant I had the confidence in them and their distributor to provide me with a solution that would enable King Toyota not only to deal with its current hardware requirements but build a platform that would support future growth.”
IT Consolidation vs. Citrix XenApp
King Toyota evaluated two solutions for its application deployment. The first was a traditional client/server model that would involve each of the three sites hosting its own servers, but building a central server farm to link operations. In the second, all operations would be linked via a wide area network (WAN) to a central server farm using Citrix XenApp.
King Toyota chose Citrix XenApp to centrally host and manage corporate applications and deploy them to its three business sites. Ultimately the scalability and functions of Citrix XenApp determined the end result.
The infrastructure was completely reworked. New WAN circuits were installed to replace the redundant serial connections. All the preparation work was performed prior to the install date and resulted in minimum down time. The install was done over a weekend allowing normal business to resume on the following Monday.
New Technology provides many benefits
The implementation of Citrix XenApp has resulted in a number of business benefits.
- The new infrastructure supports future growth of the dealership.
- Increased reporting capabilities and functionality. Financial information is accurate, and can be accessed quickly and securely.
- Applications are available and responsive when staff need them, which has had a positive impact on employee productivity and customer service.
- A degree of standardisation exists across the 3 sites which have helped streamline business operations.
Conclusion
King Toyota wanted to implement a new Dealer Management System which involved deploying a platform that required a fundamental shift in their current infrastructure. The company also required a seamless connection for their remote branches.
The deployment of the new centralised infrastructure by Datasouth utilising Citrix XenApp has given King Toyota the ability to maximise the utilisation of WAN technology, providing them with an efficient mechanism for the distribution of applications whilst presenting a seamless user experience.
