CS-03 · Case study · Dealer Management System · Manufacturing

One dealer management system for a tractor maker's 500+ dealers

The Opal Labs · Pune, India · 2018–21 · Role: Business Analyst

Aditya BankarAditya BankarSenior Business Analyst / Product Owner · 3 min read
500+Dealers on one system
5 modulesPre-sales, sales, procurement, service and marketing
~50%Faster report turnaround
BRD · SRSRequirements owned end to end

The context

Tractor dealers do far more than sell. They handle enquiries and demos, order machines and parts from the manufacturer, keep stock, bill customers and service tractors for years after the sale. When each of those runs in a separate tool, nobody has the full picture.

At The Opal Labs I was the business analyst for a Dealer Management System and billing system for a global tractor manufacturer's network of 500+ dealers.

The problem

The platform had to bring a dealer's whole business into one place:

  • Pre-sales, sales, procurement, inventory and service needed to work as one system.
  • Requirements came from many business teams and had to be written so developers could build them.
  • The system had to exchange data with the manufacturer's systems through APIs.
  • Reports were slow to produce.

My role

  • Gathered requirements across the pre-sales, sales, procurement, service and marketing modules.
  • Translated them into BRD and SRS documents, including data and API integration requirements.
  • Worked with technical teams and business stakeholders through delivery.
  • Optimised report generation, cutting report turnaround time by about 50%.

The dealer order flow

Each column is a team or system. Green badges mark the points the design had to get right.

Scroll sideways to see the whole diagram →

Dealer order flow from order to reportingDealerDMSSales teamReportingDealerneeds stockPlace orderin the DMSCheck price listand stockApprove anddispatchBill the dealer,update stock1Sales and stockreports2Plan nextorder
  1. 1Orders, billing and dealer stock live in one system.
  2. 2Reports run on live data and take about half the time.
Start Step Decision End Each column is one team or system. Arrows show hand-offs.

The approach

  1. 1
    Follow the dealer's dayMapped the journey from enquiry and demo to sale, delivery and service.
  2. 2
    One module at a timeGathered requirements module by module: pre-sales, sales, procurement, service and marketing.
  3. 3
    Write it down onceCaptured processes and rules in a BRD for the business and an SRS for the technical team.
  4. 4
    Define the integrationsSpecified data and API integration requirements with the manufacturer's systems.
  5. 5
    Speed up reportingReworked report generation so reports came out in about half the time.

Sample work: requirements extract

IDRequirementPriorityAcceptance
DMS-SO-01Dealers can order only products on their active price listMustAn inactive product is rejected with a clear message
DMS-SO-04Dealer stock updates when an invoice is postedMustThe stock report shows the new quantity within one minute
DMS-SV-03A service job card records the tractor's serial number and engine hoursMustA job card cannot be saved without both
DMS-RP-02Monthly sales report by dealer and modelShouldThe report runs for 500+ dealers without timing out

Illustrative extract written for this portfolio. Real requirements are client-confidential.

Results

  • 500+ dealers on one Dealer Management System and billing system.
  • Pre-sales, sales, procurement, inventory and service in one place.
  • Report turnaround cut by about 50%.
  • Requirements documented end to end in BRD and SRS.

What I learned

  • One source of truth matters more than any single feature.
  • Write integration requirements early. Scale problems are expensive to fix late.
  • Reports get used when they answer a planner's actual question.

Client details are anonymised. Diagrams are redrawn and all figures are approximate.