Luxury Car Manufacturer - Case Study

Company profile 

Our client is a supplier with a one hundred year history in premium car supply as well as the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial vehicles.  With its strong brands and its comprehensive portfolio of automobiles – from compact cars to heavy duty trucks – they further complement their proposition with tailor made services along the automobile value chain. The company is active in nearly every country in the world, with its headquarters in Germany.

In France, our client is organised into two main business units (wholesale and financial services) located on two main sites near Paris, and has a network of 45 owned retail sites distributed in the country.  Our client employs approximately 3,500 people across multiple sites throughout France.

The challenge 

After an internal reorganisation, support of ICT infrastructure was achieved through a common IT department with similar delivery approaches. Our client had already achieved significant cost reduction with an extensive usage of external support resources (over 80%) located on the company’s site.

The challenge therefore was to identify an outsourcing model which brought flexibility, reduced costs and delivered the same or improved levels of service.

How Quantum Plus helped 

Quantum Plus had previously supported the outsourcing process for the client in several other countries in Europe, and continues its support through the continent. Using the Quantum Plus methodology, combined with our client’s processes developed at the corporate headquarters (named Boundary), the process started with the development of the preliminary business case, using company and market data, and a few months later with the development of the RFP with supporting documentation such as standard services definitions, service level agreements, pricing units, and contract terms. Quantum Plus supported the entire process from the service providers’ qualification, the evaluation of their responses, down selection and finalist selection, due diligence, contract preparation and negotiation.

Quantum Plus assisted with the design of our client's retained organisation and the start-up of the transition.

Quantum Plus also provided project management (PMO) assistance during the project using our client’s corporate project management methodology.

The outcome 

Following the extensive evaluation of responses, reference visits, due diligence and detailed contract negotiation, a single service provider was selected to provide the whole scope of services using a delivery model with resources based on our client’s main sites, leveraged support across locations in France and remote locations in Poland (service desk) and Russia (data centre and network support).

The contract was signed in May 2011 and will achieve more than 18% savings for the client, over 5 years, against previous support costs. It will also reduce the number of IT service providers, bring significantly better commercial terms and improved efficiency, functionality, service levels and resilience.

The five year contract, now in place, gives our client a much stronger position to manage a single service provider via a service based/results oriented contract with significant savings year on year. It also brings project resources to implement transformation projects initiative to streamline and implement common standard corporate processes.

When the new delivery model is implemented for France, the selected service provider will be able to use this model for other countries, currently supported locally by the selected provider (UK, Iberia) and bring additional efficiencies to everyone.