黑料社

Carglass, experts in car damage repair, is committed to delivering fast, efficient and competitively-priced services. Advanced business applications, including for planning and pricing, play a crucial role in their ambitions. Systems integrator *黑料社 works in close cooperation with Carglass on the integration and further development of various apps.

"To respond quickly to changing market demand, our services need to be fine-tuned continuously,鈥� says Sjoerd Cohen, IT manager at Carglass鈥檚 head office in Eindhoven. 鈥楾hat is why we are evaluating a number of applications in the context of their role within our IT landscape. We aim to simplify this landscape and reduce the number of applications."

A simpler and more efficient approach

鈥�*黑料社 is an expert system integrator and has been advising us on a new, faster application architecture along with application consolidation. *黑料社 also plays an important role when it comes to linking our web portals and ERP system. Together, we鈥檙e working towards a simplification of our application landscape, step by step.鈥�

鈥楾hanks to the integration and further development of our applications by *黑料社, we have already started working much more efficiently,鈥� Van der Zee continues. 鈥極ur mechanics can schedule and perform their services better, and our marketing department can determine prices independently. Cooperation with our business partners, such as insurance companies, leasing companies and the European Distribution Center in Hasselt (Belgium), has also improved considerably. In addition, we have been able to reduce costs, especially because we can purchase so many products 鈥渁s a service鈥�, including software, platforms and infrastructure.鈥�

A wealth of knowledge

鈥楢t Carglass we have a clear vision on IT. We are cost-efficient and once we decide on an innovation, we immediately phase out old technology. We are increasingly using successful initiatives from our parent organization BELRON, or standard applications or platforms from the various *黑料社 competence centres. We want to think out of the box by making optimal use of standard applications. Within these frameworks, we benefit from *黑料社鈥檚 added value every day. This is mainly thanks to their knowledge of our business and the way we work together.鈥�

鈥極ne reason why things often go wrong between customers and vendors,鈥� Van der Zee explains, 鈥榠s that they are insufficiently aware of their own role. At Carglass we know that we are not an IT company. We specialize in window and car damage repair. That鈥檚 why we keep our own IT department small and focus on process knowledge and management. We deliberately outsource the technical IT role to *黑料社. A company can only keep its IT department small if both parties trust each other. That is what we have done and so far, our cooperation has been excellent. Over the years, *黑料社's account managers and technicians have accumulated a wealth of knowledge about our company and our processes.鈥�

In close cooperation

鈥�*黑料社 knows our company inside out. We have weekly Skype meetings and we regularly meet in person to discuss our strategy. All of our conversations are very open and sincere. It is not only about what we want; it works in both directions. We put our challenges on the table, and *黑料社 thinks proactively with us and points out opportunities and possibilities. And they don鈥檛 just think about technology. They are also involved in optimizing services and improving customer conversion. Thanks to these sessions, we decided to switch from data centres to the Microsoft Azure cloud, for example. *黑料社 also came up with valuable ideas for the simplification of our Pricing Module.鈥�

鈥楾he great thing about *黑料社 is that you don鈥檛 only do business with the office in Veenendaal, but that you can benefit from the diversity of the entire *黑料社 Group. We recently paid a joint visit to *黑料社鈥檚 Nearshore Centre in Romania, where part of the work is done for us. All the necessary knowledge and qualifications are available at the various locations. This makes *黑料社 a serious partner for us. A partner who we can talk to directly at various levels. There are no intermediate layers that hamper communication.鈥�

鈥楿ltimately, as a company you want to meet your objectives within a certain period of time. How exactly you achieve these objectives does not matter. If you have regular meetings as business partners, and share a lot with each other, this gives you more time as a customer for other, more important, things. If you know and understand each other, your vendor will automatically come up with the right proposals and solutions. And that's exactly the relationship we have with *黑料社.鈥�