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 When your car is up
on the rack for service at the local dealership, you probably expect
nothing more than stale coffee and old magazines in the waiting room. But
customers waiting at several dealerships operated by Hitchcock Automotive Resources
in the Los Angeles
area can pull out their laptops and connect to the Internet through
wireless local-area network "hot spots" Hitchcock has
established. And customers can take their cars to any of Hitchcock's five
dealerships because all the locations share a common network, allowing
service managers to quickly pull up the vehicle's history.
These network options are just a few of the many enjoyed by Hitchcock
customers, employees, and vendors since the company deployed a wide-area
network (WAN) last year connecting its facilities in an effort to decrease
networking costs, improve customer service, and streamline business
processes.
Founded in 1979, Hitchcock Automotive Resources has 800 employees and
sells more than 14,000 BMW, Ford, Hyundai, Scion, Toyota, and Volkswagen vehicles
annually.
Like many multisite automotive dealerships,
Hitchcock has long depended on server-based applications to support its
core business operations, including vehicle sales, customer service, and
parts and inventory management. The problem was that these business
applications all ran on individual servers located at each dealership.
And because each server was isolated from the rest, it was difficult to
share and consolidate business information across the company. The
localized servers were also costly to manage and maintain, requiring a
support person at each location for troubleshooting.
"We knew it would make our organization more efficient, improve
collaboration, and save money if we could migrate
our business applications to a centralized, high-performance server. The
question was how," says Rich Morris, vice president of information
systems at Hitchcock Automotive Resources.
Above all, Hitchcock wanted the network connections between the
individual dealerships and its central server to be fast and reliable.
Any network outage would result in employees standing idle, along with
every dealer's nightmare—willing buyers but no paperwork to close the
deal. Downtime during a promotional weekend could have huge financial
impact.
"When you're dealing with high-end sales such as BMW and Toyota, there are
customer expectations regarding sales professionalism and status. From an
IT perspective, there is no room for error," says Jeff Roback,
president of Los Angeles–based Praxis Computing,
which designed and installed Hitchcock's WAN.
For Morris, the potential loss from network outages extended beyond
prestige. "If the network is down for a day or two,
that is a huge potential loss of business. We're talking tens of
thousands to maybe $100,000. I went to the owner and said, 'If we're
going to go back to a centralized system, we need a very robust
solution.'"
Industry Pressures
The automotive industry, from finance and sales to maintenance, is
increasingly automated among partners and vendors, so Hitchcock also
needed a solution that provided uninterrupted, high-performance
connectivity beyond its WAN to intranets operated by the various
automobile manufacturers. To protect sensitive business transactions such
as loan approvals and financial reporting, Hitchcock required security at
every layer of the network.
"In the past, we've had portions of our network exposed to
viruses," says Morris. "I am not an expert on computer
security, but I know it has to be a critical component in any
solution."
Morris first looked at Internet-based and frame-relay solutions promoted
by telecommunications carriers, but none of the solutions met Hitchcock's
major goals. "I wasn't satisfied with what the big phone providers were
telling me, and I wasn't comfortable sharing that big Internet cloud out
there with the rest of the world," says Morris. "It just seemed
there were too many potential complications."
Morris eventually came across Praxis Computing and the concept of a Cisco
Systems WAN solution. Praxis proposed using T-1 leased lines to connect
Hitchcock dealerships with the company's core applications at its
headquarters in City of Industry,
California. Praxis also
proposed back-up ISDN lines to ensure that vital network applications
would remain available even if a T-1 connection should fail. At each
dealership, Hitchcock continued to deploy local-area networks to connect
individual workstations and servers via a mix of Cisco Catalyst switches,
extended with a Cisco Aironet wireless solution
to provide customer hot spots and eventually extend the WAN to service
representatives and managers roaming the shop floor and sales lots.
Because of Praxis Computing's Premier Partner
relationship with Cisco, Roback was also able to arrange special pricing
for Hitchcock under Cisco's New Accounts program, enabling Morris to
procure the best possible equipment while staying within his budget.
Driving Deployment
The WAN deployment wasn't without challenges. Hitchcock, like many companies,
had grown in part through acquisition and possessed an inherited
collection of mismatched networks, subnetworks,
applications, and telecommunications equipment that had to be brought
online. Additionally, the company could not afford significant downtime
during the transition.
"I worked with Praxis on design validation, security issues, and
hot-spot deployment," says Cisco Channel Systems Engineer Andrew
Richter, who worked on the Hitchcock project.
Roback and Richter's design featured pervasive security, including Cisco
PIX firewall solutions and a Cisco Intrusion Detection System, a network
security appliance that detects unauthorized network activity and
analyzes traffic in real time.
The network deployment began in November 2002 and took about six weeks,
with the new network running parallel to Hitchcock's existing network.
Hitchcock switched over to the new network in January 2003, and
performance has been flawless, according to Morris.
"The remote-site systems run as fast as those at the central site,
and we have had zero downtime," he says. "The ability to run
our stores on a central server with this level of reliability is
priceless. We now have bulletproof, 100% uptime."
A Sweet Deal
Hitchcock's investment in a single, high-speed network infrastructure is
paying big dividends. Because locations can now exchange data securely
over the WAN, Hitchcock can consolidate dealership information more
efficiently than before. It now takes only two employees at the main
office to generate payroll for the entire company.
"This centralized server allows us to run the organization
efficiently without duplication of personnel or equipment at each
location," says Morris. "In addition, we can now quickly
generate management reports for multiple dealerships and distribute the
information throughout our firm."
Productivity is up too. Morris estimates that
eliminating the remote servers saves location managers an average
of ten hours a week for network administration—time that they can now
commit to helping the sales team.
But Morris's peace of mind comes from knowing that the network is running
quickly and reliably. "Everything we do, from selling a car to
financing to service and parts, is based on our network. I don't have to
worry about it, it just works—it's beautiful," he says.
Hitchcock is planning new initiatives to make the most of its
infrastructure. Using Cisco Aironet solutions,
Hitchcock wants to deploy additional wireless connections, and the
company is implementing a new Web-based portal to enhance communications
with individual managers and replace paper-based reporting.
All these features add up to one big benefit—the ability to focus on the
customers and keep them happy—in the waiting room and out.
iQ Magazine, First Quarter 2004
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Cisco Systems and Praxis Computing, a
Cisco Premier Partner, provide local-area network, wide-area network,
and Internet Protocol solutions to deliver immediate strategic and
financial benefits to business and public-sector customers.
The strategic relationship is
built on Cisco's leadership in developing intelligent infrastructure
solutions for businesses of all sizes, combined with Praxis's
expertise in on-site project management, solution development, and
consulting.
Cisco and Praxis develop joint
initiatives and implementation teams that take advantage of Cisco's
scalable networking technology and Praxis's networking and security
solutions and integration. Praxis specializes in the legal,
entertainment, real estate, and automotive fields and has additional
certifications in network security and wireless networking solutions.
John Donne was right: "No man is an island, entire of itself." And no company is an island. Unless
your staff is particularly tech-savvy, you'll want to take advantage
of the resources offered by resellers. When choosing a reseller, consider
the following questions:
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Do you need a reseller that has a high level of
familiarity with a range or a specific type of product?
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Do you need a reseller with deep knowledge of your industry
regulations or standards?
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Is the reseller certified by manufacturers or
industry associations? For instance, if you're buying networking
equipment, you'll want a Cisco certified reseller.
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Does the reseller offer service-level agreements or
other performance guarantees?
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How do you see your needs changing over the next 12
to 24 months? Be sure the resellers you consider are prepared to
grow with you.
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Does the reseller have offices in your area? Charge
more for on-site assistance? Charge for travel costs?
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Have you balanced cost concerns with considerations
such as service and support options?
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What experiences have companies of your size or in
your industry had with resellers?
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Use the Cisco Partner Locator (cisco.com/go/partnerlocator)
to find partners and resellers in your area. Use the advanced search
to identify certifications and technology specialties.—Kim Austin
Peterson
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: An access point in a specific
geographic location that provides public wireless broadband network
services to mobile visitors through a wireless local-area network.
Hot spots are often located in heavily populated places such as
airports and train stations, and typically have a short range of
access.
Integrated Services Digital Network
is an international communications standard for sending data, voice,
and video over digital telephone lines, analog telephone wires, or
fiber-optic networks.
A dedicated high-speed telephone line
for digital transmission that can handle 24 voice or data channels at
64 kbps. T-1 lines are used for private networks and corporate
Internet connections.
wide-area
network is a computer network that covers a large geographic area,
such as a state. WANs may use telephone lines, fiber-optic cables, or
satellite links for their long-distance connections. Some WANs are
created by connecting several smaller LANs.
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To learn more about Cisco network security solutions,
go to cisco.com/go/security.
Go to cisco.com/go/aironet to learn more
about Cisco Aironet wireless solutions.
Visit Praxis Computing at praxis.com.
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