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The Client
Aprilia is Europe's second largest producer of motorcycles and
scooters and the only non-Japanese manufacturer with a complete range of two wheeled
vehicles.
Aprilia's sales network boasts 192 official dealers and 1480
authorised sales outlets in Italy. Aprilia also owns 4 foreign subsidiaries, in Croatia,
Greece, USA and Japan, and 4 selling agencies (UK, France, Spain, Germany). Aprilia
machines are sold in another 24 countries worldwide via a network of exclusive importers
who supply 1,800 dealers.
The Problem
Aprilia UK decided recently that the timing may now be appropriate
to investigate mapping products for more operational planning of dealer locations and
understanding performance.
Two key initiatives needed addressing - "where should they place
the dealers" linked to an overarching objective to understand and increase dealer
performance, using the as a catalyst for action and "we realised in 2007 that we had no
idea which dealers sold which bikes into which Postcodes. The additional problem was one
of dealer targeting, with no scientific thought behind area performance."
The Solution
Tactician GeoAnalyser has been introduced for use by the Dealer
Development Manager along with Motorcycle Industry registration figures and competitor
location data-sets. Geoplan's unique territory analysis functions have helped Aprilia in
understanding where their customers are, analyse performance in a given territory, define
optimum dealer locations, define 'open points' and optimise territory structure.
Geoplan was employed to generate a 'current' view for Aprilia
dealers, and Geoplan were then able to train the Aprilia team on how to review, adjust,
and add to the dealer network. Aprilia are also able to review performance by dealer or
postcode and review industry performance on a monthly basis via a preset range of heat
maps and charts.
"The solution was to allocate dealers territories and to set
targets based on the local market. The training provided has been second to none I have
called a few times for technical help and it has been pleasantly and swiftly provided, a
service level that gives us confidence to recommend Geoplan to the rest of the company."
The Benefits
This analysis has lead ultimately to allowing Aprilia to identify
areas of overlap, waste and opportunity, enabling them to reduce cost and improve sales
performance and return.
"We have now been using Tactician GeoAnalyser for six months
and are very pleased with it. We have bought additional data for the Aprilia
installation and the Vespa side of the business wants its own installation too now.
We have shown the system to our colleagues in Italy and they were very impressed to
the extent that I now have to show the system to my colleagues in other countries too.
We examined various examples of mapping software and many
would have done the job. We chose Geoplan and Tactician GeoAnalyser because it was a
program that was easy and instinctive to use, would easily produce the results we
were after and could be utilised for more detailed studies in the future if we wished.
It was expandable, easy to understand and the results were easy to interpret for
presentations. We were also convinced of the integrity of Geoplan and their willingness
to understand our problems and produce a solution. While the program may be off the
shelf, the solution was bespoke." -- Ian Wilson (Dealer Development Manager), Aprilia
UK
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