Volkswagen Japan sales streamlines IT with analytics

Volkswagen Japan Sales (VJS) is an automobile company with 11 stores in the Tokyo metropolitan area, managed directly by Porsche Holding Salzburg, Europe’s largest automotive retail company. At VJS, employees use a range of devices to perform important tasks, from client management, quoting, ordering, vehicle management to parts management.

“Our stores are scattered across metro Tokyo, and with consideration to physical distance and the speed of information sharing, we would not be able to do our daily jobs without our devices,” says VJS President Akihiko Nishida. “However, information-storing devices face various problems such as server inaccessibility and freezing. Our IT staff had to go up against these unpredictable problems every day.”

President Nishida says time to repair is his highest priority: “We respond to failures remotely, and sometimes we had to go in blind and test multiple ways to fix the problem because we were unable to immediately find the cause. We’d be able to respond more quickly if only we were able to grasp the situation more clearly.”

With the end of support for Windows 7 and the transition to Windows 10, a rebuilding of the entire support system, including the introduction of devices, came under consideration. “The system at the time was managed by different vendors for each phase such as device manufacturer, implementation support and post-implementation help desk,” President Nishida explains. “As such, it was difficult to locate problems after the system was implemented. Not only that, two members of the IT team managed some 400 devices, and it was critical to visualize the entire system to reduce this burden.”

Creating a consolidated, easy-to-manage IT environment

There were key criteria selected as part of renovating the system, President Nishida explains. “The first point is the visibility of IT costs. Predictability of monthly and annual IT costs allows for more effective budget planning. The second point is the visibility of IT issues. We must identify the cause as soon as possible, increase response speed and reduce the burden on the IT team,” he says. “HP Services accurately provides proactive device health monitoring and analytics reporting.”

Implementing HP Device as a Service (DaaS) provided a complete solution, uniting devices, repair services and analytics into a single monthly agreement and provides a simple and easy-to-manage IT environment. President Nishida says the ease of management integrating HP Services proved critical: “With HP DaaS, we were able to combine the different vendors for each phase into one enabling a streamlined lifecycle management. For IT staff, this is a great advantage.”

HP TechPulse reporting resulting from proactive device monitoring drastically improves device management visibility, says President Nishida: “All device insights such as software performance, CPU/memory usage and device utilization can be viewed at a glance on the HP TechPulse dashboard. We can also immediately check the BIOS and Windows 10 update information for all devices, which helps us provide appropriate prompting updates and support to each employee,” he says.

With proactive device monitoring and analytics with HP TechPulse, President Nishida explains that IT can now not only rapidly respond to failures, but also predict and alleviate problems — such as a battery or disk failure — before they occur.

“We can take pre-emptive measures, such as backing up data or replacing a battery before performance declines. This type of intervention helps decrease stress for both employees and IT staff, and we can focus our abilities on more productive tasks,” he says. “And these hidden costs have greatly decreased.”

Business outcomes: Maintaining optimal device lifecycle

HP Services provides consistent service in all phases of the device lifecycle. The same goes for the help desk and support systems after implementation. As part of the implementation of the HP DaaS solution, the VJS help desk also transitioned to Comture Network Corporation, as it partners easily with HP.

“As a help desk, we receive support not only for devices, but also for Microsoft Office and other information systems in general,” President Nishida explains. “After implementation, there were very few inquiries made to the help desk. I believe this is because, in addition to the high quality of the HP devices, the help desk has visibility to the analytics reporting by HP TechPulse to take preventive measures.”

President Nishida says the result is a device management process that is scalable, secure and more streamlined: “Proactive device monitoring and data analytics through HP DaaS also created a robust support system including the help desk. We were able to streamline our operations. And when it comes to devices, HP notebooks are both durable and light enough to carry with ease. We have gotten closer to my ideal of streamlined devices and systems.

“Since our business is based on close cooperation with the headquarters in Germany and our Japanese subsidiaries, we cannot proceed with a system build on our own. We are, however, moving in the direction where all the necessary tools for the automotive business will be integrated into a single system to centralize information and extract the maximum benefit from the minimum number of devices.”

President Nishida says the engagement with HP DaaS reflects a broader shift of mindset within IT from ‘owning’ to ‘using’. “There is no doubt that the shift to cloud computing and subscriptions will continue to accelerate. Ideally, I’d like to be able to manage a minimal number of devices and build an IT environment with only a monthly fee base. HP DaaS allows you to add or change services as needed, so you can always operate effectively in an IT environment matching your current situation. This, in turn, is leading to better service.

Learn more at hp.com/hp-services