BMW and Hansaprint's spare-part market

BMW Service has increasingly put the printing and distribution of its brochures and owner's manuals into the hands of Hansaprint. The resultant reduction in administration has left BMW Service with more time for the job itself, i.e. selling BMW and Mini parts and accessories. Now, the partnership is developing a totally new service, an Internet-based spare-part marketplace to speed up dealers' service.

The idea for the spare-part marketplace arose out of BMW's need to make the sparepart stocks at Finland's 34 dealers more quickly available to other dealers. Dealers currently get most of the parts they need within about 24 hours from BMW's Nordic spareparts warehouse in Malmö, which is able to supply over 90 percent of parts requested. But BMW repair shops still need rarer parts that have to be ordered from BMW's plant in Munich. In such cases, delivery can take up to five days, which is often too long for busy customers. The number of items on the spare-part inventory is also added to by imports of used BMWs, which increases the number of different models in the country. BMW Group Finland and its dealers want to provide a good service to the people who buy these cars, too. The operation is profitable, since car-trade profits come increasingly from sales of spares and maintenance services.
"Finland's BMW fleet is quite old, the average age of a vehicle being over ten years," says After Sales Manager Simo Ahlgren. "BMW customer loyalty is high, and users want their maintenance done by official repairers."

STOCK VISIBLE TO ALL
BMW Finland operates through independent dealership businesses. But Finnish dealers cannot see the status of each other's spare-part stocks. Spare parts with low circulation rates will often be in stock in one place in Finland, while being needed in another location. "Up to now, if a repair shop wants to get hold of these less-needed components, for example, body parts, rapidly, they have had to phone other repair shops or ask BMW Finland if they know who might have them."
The idea of the spare-part marketplace is clear and simple. Retail repair shops use the Internet portal to share information on where they can get each individual part. Ecco Fatto Oy, which specialises in data systems for repair-shop services, collects data on the status of the spare-part stock at each retailers, and updates the spare-part marketplace database once every 24 hours.
Altogether, the marketplace lists some three thousand items. So that it will not grow impossibly large, the system developers set a minimum price and age for products sold. It is not worth listing every individual nut or bolt.
Hansaprint has already started maintaining the actual Internet portal. The plan is for the sparepart marketplace to be up and running during the summer. The benefits are obvious: retailers get an additional channel for acquiring parts, and the operation is made more efficient as the circulation rate of spare-part stocks is improved.

HANSAPRINT IS GOOD FOR BUSINESS
Having got the idea for the spare-part marketplace BMW Service needed a business partner who would be able to handle the running of the portal.
"We asked Hansaprint whether they could handle this kind of service, and we soon got a positive response," Ahlgren says.
Traditionally, printing houses have not invested in such services. But for Hansaprint this is an obvious step, since it creates and delivers solutions that support its customers' operations.

"With BMW's spare-part marketplace our job is to manage inventory data and maintain the platform, on which the trading is done. We do not stock or supply parts, BMW's retailers themselves handle that side of things," says Project Manager Taisto Junkkari of Hansaprint.

COLLABORATION BEGAN WITH BUSINESS CARDS Hansaprint's collaboration with BMW began with business-card printing. Retailers have to comply with BMW AG's specifications for business cards, too. But ordering and printing these cards is a routine operation, and BMW Group Finland gave the job to Hansaprint.
Next, BMW Service began to wonder how they could further switch employees' efforts to developing repair-shop operations. There are a total of 70 BMW owner's and maintenance manuals in all, and the number is constantly increasing as new models are introduced. There is a demand for owner's and maintenance manuals for old BMW models because of imports bof used cars. "Every BMW owner wants their own Finnish-language owner's manual," says Product Manager Markku Hämäläinen of BMW Group Finland.

MORE TIME FOR CUSTOMERS
BMW Group Finland has handed over the sales and logistics of maintenance and owner's manuals to Hansaprint. Hansaprint takes in the orders, and prints, stores and delivers books to customers, and bills them. Selling the books is quite a big job. For example, a couple of thousand volumes have been delivered to customers over the last two months.
"Before, we used to send out the books alongside our other work, and deliveries could sometimes be slow. Now, BMW owners are satisfied with the swift delivery, and we have more time for our other work," Ahlgren says.
There is more time for BMW Group Finland's own customers. "Retailers often complained that we were hard to reach. Now, the situation has improved noticeably," Ahlgren says.
The printing of the owner's manuals can be done quickly using Hansaprint's digital technology. The system gives a warning if stocks of a particular book are running out. That information is passed to BMW Group Finland, who give their approval for a new edition.
In addition to owner's manuals, Hansaprint does the printing and distribution of brochures for both BMW and the company's other brand, Mini.
All in all, Hansaprint's service has helped BMW Group Finland to concentrate its resources more effectively on developing the repair shops' operations, in customer service, maintenance and sales of accessories. "We were freed of the manual work," Ahlgren laughs.