The Big Leap: Tavant Accelerates Growth; Surpasses Significant Milestones
2020 is now – finally – hindsight. It was undeniably a year of unprecedented disruption. Merriam-Webster recently announced that the Word of the Year for 2020 is pandemic. However, my personal vote goes to perseverance. Despite the challenges and twists and turns, Tavant is so proud to have achieved several major milestones last year –thanks to the perseverance of our team. These significant milestones demonstrate our commitment to enabling clients across multiple tech industries to rapidly accelerate their digital transformation journey and provide the best possible customer experience. Aligned with this trend, the key milestones that helped fuel the company’s unprecedented growth include: Product adoption and new product launches The debut of the digital software factory Launch of Banktech business Key strategic alliances 20 prestigious industry awards including Stevie® Award for AI and Machine Learning Reflecting on significant milestones in 2020: Tavant saw a surge in growth and increased adoption of its flagship AI-powered product suite, Tavant VΞLOX. Tavant’s core growth acceleration also came through its Digital Software Factories (“Digital Factory”) at its new technology innovation center in Dallas. Tavant further expanded its fintech and digital lending business by launching its Proptech business, bringing technology and innovation together to address common customer challenges in this burgeoning sector of Real Estate. Furthermore, at the American Banker’s Digital Banking 2020 conference, Tavant announced its expansion to new business lines with the launch of its Banktech practice in New York. Tavant expanded its industry-leading aftermarket product suite beyond warranty with salesforce connectors like Field service, B2B, and CPQ, available on the service cloud. They work seamlessly in conjunction with Tavant Warranty and support the entire gamut of Service- lifecycle management for a wider and faster digital transformation. Tavant Warranty got featured in Salesforce road to recovery apps. 2020 proved to be a year of key successful alliances. The company teamed up with Microsoft and Land O’Lakes Inc. to help farmers generate new insights from their crops, leveraging AI technologies. Tavant entered a strategic partnership with Softworks AI to deliver the touchless mortgage promise. The company also launched FinDecision, which improves loan quality while enhancing the overall borrower experience. Additionally, Tavant FinConnect and FinLeads made their debut on the Salesforce AppExchange, the world’s leading enterprise cloud marketplace. Early 2020, the company got recognized for driving fintech innovation forward during the year and bagged a few major fintech industry awards. Additionally, it was named to prestigious IDC FinTech Rankings by IDC Financial Insights. Tavant was also named the winner of a Stevie® Award in the 18th Annual American Business Awards® in the Business Technology category for Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning solutions. Furthermore, Tavant’s next-gen quality engineering (QE) business was recognized by Everest Group in its PEAK MatrixTM assessment report. Tavant was also recognized as a leader in the IDC MarketScape for manufacturing warranty and service contract management applications and made it to the IDC TechScape: Worldwide Service Life-Cycle Management and Servitization Optimization in Manufacturing, 2020, where it was mentioned in Service Analytics and Business Intelligence and Warranty Software sections. The company was also mentioned in the aftermarket, professional, and life sciences services section in the IDC Market Glance: Next-Generation Automotive and Transportation Strategies report. Empowering businesses to build resilience for today and what is ahead. Tavant is grateful to its associates, partners, and community for navigating through the pandemic together. This adversity presented a historic opportunity for innovation and digital transformation. Tavant is uniquely positioned to leverage its technical and domain expertise to drive value for all its partners. We built a solid foundation in 2020 and are planning to continue to execute our strategy in 2021. We aim to empower companies to accelerate their digital transformation journey to respond, recover, and thrive in the new normal reality in a most secure and cost-effective way. These significant milestones are a true testament to how our customers bolster their digital strategy to improve profitability and enhance their customer experience using Tavant’s products and solutions. We will continually support your digital journey and help you rise to new levels of business resiliency, and stay relevant in an uncertain world. To learn how we help our customers use digital to create value by reinventing the core of their business, visit www.tavant.com or reach out to us at [email protected].
Retaining your Customers with Seamless Warranty Resolution
In this era, companies are trying to stray away from the term of one-time customers. Competition has become immense, and organizations are pulling every string possible to ensure they can retain and satisfy their customers. Would providing the best product or having the best sales team solve the problem? They are all the fundamental part of the product’s sale, but the customers must have a healthy relationship with the organization even after the first sale. Here is when the warranty comes into the picture. Warranty is a written contract issued to the customer by the company, promising to repair or replace a product, if necessary. But providing a warranty alone is not enough. The company should follow a seamless warranty management practice that gives resolution with the best outcome and in the best possible timeframe. How does a seamless warranty resolution satisfy the customer? Customers are satisfied when they see a quick turnaround time for their warranty claims. Every touchpoint with the customer will be satisfactory if the warranty system is in place to give all the required information. The system should help the dealer/company make quick decisions regarding the customers’ warranty claims. How can a company achieve a quick turnaround time? Turnaround time is the time taken to resolve an issue. It is based on various variables, such as: Online questionnaire Parts availability Human resources Streamlined approval flows Failure identification Fraudulent detection Consistent systems Fast processing Configurable system When a company achieves this, it would be able to process a customer’s warranty claim with the fastest and best resolution. The company can do all this with their allocated budget if they can streamline the process. Warranty systems give all essential data about the defects and can predict the possible future failures from the past data. The failure information captured in the system can provide valuable information to set up future field actions or campaigns. These field actions, when set up efficiently, can make a huge difference to customer satisfaction. A robust warranty system can address the following in providing a seamless customer experience: Providing timely update; the vehicle warranty status Ensuring quick claim processing time Providing notification to the customers on any scheduled maintenance or field action which may be due Having a telematics connection with the vehicle to record the machine activities Enabling customer feedback through an online portal Reducing wait time for claim approval Providing access to required information for the team to engage the customer’s issues Wrapping up When an organization has a seamless warranty management in place, it has an added advantage over the competitors. So, it is clear to say, a seamless warranty system not only helps manufacturers in streamlining their internal processes but also helps in increasing customer retention and satisfaction. Reach out to at [email protected] in case you wish to gain more insights.
Tavant Recognized as a Leader in the IDC MarketScape for Manufacturing Warranty and Service Contract Management Applications
SANTA CLARA, Calif., June 11, 2020 Tavant, a leading digital products and solutions company, today announced that it has been named a leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Manufacturing Warranty and Service Contract Management Applications in 2019/2020 Vendor Assessment (doc #US44408619, December 2019). This study assesses the capability and business strategy of technology vendors in the warranty and service contract management market. The leadership position of Tavant is differentiated by strong industry knowledge, breadth of advanced product capabilities, and how well Tavant’s future strategy aligns with the manufacturing industry. The assessment identified Tavant’s key strengths, including: Strong domain expertise and advanced capabilities in the end-to-end warranty management process A roadmap of warranty management to enable manufacturers with the future of warranty – customer-first and connected world A product that is modular, deployed across diverse manufacturing industries and is available on premise or on the cloud Use of AI (Artificial Intelligence) and IoT (Internet of Things) and other innovative technologies “Manufacturers should consider Tavant when they are looking to partner with a warranty-focused provider that can deliver advanced capabilities across the end-to-end warranty set of processes, “said Aly Pinder, Analyst, IDC. “As manufacturers look to leverage the IoT and AI, among other innovative technologies, they will need partners like Tavant that can incorporate this rich real-time data into the warranty process.” Tavant offers a wide range of products and services that help manufacturers achieve operational efficiency and revenue growth. The integrated suite of capabilities across warranty management, channel management, field service management, and B2B commerce is helping organizations achieve service excellence by optimizing customer data and interactions. “We are delighted that the IDC MarketScape has validated our position as a leader in the manufacturing market. We firmly believe that this recognition is a testament to our exceptional customer-focused approach, strong warranty management expertise, and digital capabilities that deliver tangible value to our global customers. We are committed to helping manufacturers achieve maximum business value with connected customer experiences,” said Roshan Pinto, Head of Manufacturing, Tavant. “AI is now an indispensable tool for enabling better user experience, efficiency, and smart business decisions. At Tavant, it is the core to our way of thinking about building differentiated products and solutions,” substantiated Pinto. Download IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Manufacturing Warranty and Service Contract Management Applications 2019 Vendor Assessment – Tavant About Tavant Warranty Tavant Warranty is an industry-leading web-based, full-lifecycle warranty management solution that brings together OEMs, suppliers, and service channel partners in a real-time collaborative environment. Tavant warranty solution has evolved over 20 years of experience working with leading customers to develop and implement enterprise-class warranty claim solutions. Tavant Warranty helps reduce warranty spend, increase supplier recovery, reduce claim processing, and consolidate fragmented warranty data to improve forecasts. Find Tavant on LinkedIn and Twitter. About IDC MarketScape IDC MarketScape vendor assessment model is designed to provide an overview of the competitive fitness of ICT (information and communications technology) suppliers in a given market. The research methodology utilizes a rigorous scoring methodology based on both qualitative and quantitative criteria that results in a single graphical illustration of each vendor’s position within a given market. IDC MarketScape provides a clear framework in which the product and service offerings, capabilities and strategies, and current and future market success factors of IT and telecommunications vendors can be meaningfully compared. The framework also provides technology buyers with a 360-degree assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of current and prospective vendors.
Aftermarket 4.0 During and Post COVID-19 (Using IoT, AI, Chatbot and DIY)
In today’s volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous world, we are facing unexpected impediments. And manufacturers are one of the most negatively impacted industries. Due to plant shutdown, Auto manufacturers alone in India incurred a loss of close to three billion dollars, and it continues.[i] David Nabarro, WHO special envoy for COVID-19, stated, “I believe that the world will have to learn to live with Corona in our midst, and that means being on a constant defense everywhere as we do with other infectious diseases.” [ii] Businesses that want to survive and win are looking out for avenues to create a system of disaster-response infrastructure. They understand that most customers are not loyal to a brand; they are loyal to their needs of that brand. “Needs” such as quality, prompt response, timely services, value for money, or priority privilege, and so forth. Organizations are finding ways to reach their customers and reassure their peace of mind. To offer initial diagnostic service call, Consumer Priority Service Corporation, an international provider of repair and extended warranty services for the consumer electronics and appliance industries, has partnered with Zoom.[iii] Warrantywise, a British auto extended Warranty selling company, is now allowing their dealers to sell extended warranty policies from home.[iv] Almost all auto companies are offering an extension to their policies that are about to expire soon. Is that enough to keep up the brand performance? How do the leaders ensure the safety of their employees and customers and still secure the supply chain efficiency? How can they manage near-term revenue and cash expenses while satisfying endless customer needs at the same time? Can sales be achieved as a by-product of responsive, reliable, and reassuring warranty services offered to the customers who are dealing with much uncertainty? Dealing with such a situation, the leaders must equip their companies with a pandemic-response capability by building a robust digital infrastructure with the help of Aftermarket 4.0. So, what is Aftermarket 4.0? It is an Aftermarket services version of Industry 4.0. Aftermarket 4.0 is an infrastructure and practice that includes cyber-physical systems, IIoT, cloud computing, big data, and predictive analytics to instill a culture and trend of automation and data exchange in the operations. The benefits are enormous, such as: 1. Data Access across the supply chain 2. Improved safety, output, and satisfaction for employees, workers, and customers 3. Enhanced customization based on customer and operational needs and different services offered 4. Improved productivity and business output To enable these changes as a leader, you must follow the five points described below: 1. An Intelligent Warranty Management System: First thing first, all manufacturers that are in the business of warranty must go for a seamless Warranty Management system to automate complex human-led processes and decisions. Manufacturers must get rid of all their age-old on-premise solutions. They must aim for an intelligent cloud-based system that seamlessly binds different organizational aspects, both internally and externally. 2. Building AI Base: Leaders must consider the capability of the warranty management system to working seamlessly with near real-time data received over IoT and uses artificial intelligence to automate more decisions that were otherwise needed collaborative human interference. 3. Enabling Chatbot: By consulting and evaluating the historical customer queries, the AI system can identify and present various patterns of problems vs. solutions. Chatbots, backed by extensive data, can especially be very useful in responding to customers’ queries practically instantaneously. This investment towards the Chatbot can save the enormous human hours spent otherwise. And, at the same time, reassure customers with prompt and significant responses. 4. Prescriptive Maintenance: It is no longer enough to predict the failures alone. The ‘Smart Manufacturing’ demands ‘Prescription’ along with the ‘Prediction’. Prescriptive maintenance not only tells you that a problem is likely to occur but also shows you multiple response scenarios to choose from. By utilizing artificial intelligence and machine learning methods, perspective maintenance advises the technicians on what to do and how to perform a repair. 5. DIY Friendly products and solutions: The last step towards building the eco-system of robust customer satisfaction is to enable and offer more ‘Do-It-Yourself’ activities on maintenance for your customers. Encouraging your customers to use the mobile app version of your warranty management system to scan parts receipts/invoices to the appropriate places is a great way to replace the paper trail for the repair history, helping you to keep the warranty intact. Final Thoughts The clock is ticking. We are in unprecedented times. Nevertheless, there are many possibilities, but are any of them being practiced? And where do you get such a futuristic system? Reach out to us at [email protected] today. We got you covered! References: [i] https://www.deccanherald.com/business/business-news/coronavirus-impact-auto-industry-to-suffer-loss-of-rs-21000-crore-due-to-plant-closures-817266.html [ii] https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/coronavirus-new-reality-we-will-have-to-learn-to-live-with-it-who-official-david-nabarro-1660190-2020-03-27 [iii] https://www.cpscentral.com/consumer-priority-service-partners-with-zoom/ [iv] https://cardealermagazine.co.uk/publish/warrantywise-can-help-dealers/188765
Tavant Manufacturing Analytics Platform Achieves Microsoft Co-Sell Ready Status; Available on Microsoft Azure Platform
SANTA CLARA, Calif., November 7, 2019 Tavant, a leading digital products and solutions company for the manufacturing industry, has announced that its Tavant Manufacturing Analytics Platform (TMAP) is co-sell ready now. Tavant’s “Co-Sell” status will enable Tavant to collaborate closely with Microsoft field sales teams worldwide on targeted enterprise-level customer opportunities and related account planning activities. TMAP uses the latest artificial intelligence techniques to generate actionable insights and exposes them with APIs for direct consumption in other systems. TMAP provides a map for manufacturing companies to achieve cost leadership by improving their aftermarket operational efficiency and to increase manufacturing revenue by leveraging the latest innovations in data analytics. TMAP comes pre-loaded with industry-standard KPIs and insights and allows business users to customize and perform ad-hoc data analysis using various approaches. TMAP KPIs leverage machine learning algorithms to adapt to environmental and process changes. “Customers and partners continue to capitalize on the opportunity and accelerate their digital transformation with our program portfolio and resources. Tavant and Microsoft will jointly work to drive revenue and customer success through our collaborative co-selling initiative and a shared passion for innovative products and services. We are confident that this development will expand Tavant’s reach and connect with a larger customer base in the industry and empower everyone to achieve more,” said Rajiv Sodhi, General Manager – Partner Ecosystem at Microsoft India. “We’re thrilled to co-sell with Microsoft. We believe that the co-selling initiative with Microsoft will enable us to meet the collective needs of our customers and help us grow our businesses by reaching new customers and offering new solutions. Receiving the Microsoft Co-Sell ready status is a testament to Tavant’s ability to distill businesses’ needs and deliver tailored solutions that enable processes to run seamlessly, connect business to technology, and improve efficiency. We look forward to helping organizations compete effectively by leveraging TMAP, which enables organizations to achieve cost leadership, with a focus on operational efficiency and revenue growth. Leveraging Machine learning algorithms, TMAP allows businesses to predict fraud scoring and reserve analysis better,” said Roshan Pinto, Head of Manufacturing Practice, Tavant. “TAVANT has been a truly valuable partner for my organization. Tavant worked with Thermo King to develop a claim analytics module that is fully configured to meet our business needs. The claim analytics module gives us tremendous insights to claim filing patterns, trends, and potential suspect activity. This module has been so successful that it has been fully integrated into our claims processing, auditing, and review selection standard work. Overall, TMAP has been pivotal in making our warranty processes more efficient by lowering the cost of transaction processing and increasing the value of the resulting warranty data. Tavant is not only an industry leader in innovation and system functionality, but they take a personal approach to partnering and collaborating which ensures that our needs as a customer are met,” said Bob Roberts, Customer Solutions Leader, Thermo King. About Microsoft Azure Co-Sell Ready program The Microsoft Azure Co-Sell Ready program is a recent Microsoft initiative that provides comprehensive sales and marketing support for select partners. The program aligns Microsoft’s global salesforce behind select partners to help drive new revenues. Businesses must submit customer references that exhibit successful projects, meet a performance commitment, and pass technology plus sales assessments to be eligible for this. Find Tavant on LinkedIn and Twitter.
Blockchain – An Emerging Trend in Warranty Management
Warranty providers today are still dealing with the three critical challenges of the industry: protecting against fraudulent claims, detecting counterfeit products, and deciding on the status of coverage. Businesses are becoming increasingly complex with more vendors, dispersed manufacturing facilities, new distribution channels, and disruptive business models to make matters worse. It’s small wonder then that the processing and administration costs of warranty keep on rising. A study[1] by IBM found that in the electronics industry, only one-third of the warranty costs go towards repair or replacement of defective goods, with two-thirds being spent on processing and administration. There is a dire need to find better ways of managing warranties to keep costs from rising steadily. Technology has always provided us with solutions to address these problems in the past, so will it come to the rescue again? Well, it looks like a solution may already be around the corner, based on an emerging technology called blockchain, which originally evolved to enable decentralized transactional data sharing across large networks of untrusted participants, and is based on the concept of a distributed public ledger. Such a distributed ledger technology (DLT) could also be used to track-and-trace parts throughout the supply chain with a complete history of events related to the part. This capability would help in addressing all the three key warranty challenges mentioned above. Since the blockchain-based public ledger is accessible everywhere, warranty providers would be able to validate the claim and the warranty status at any point in the warranty management process in order to make quick decisions. Also, using the track-and-trace capability of the ledger, they could readily trace the manufacturer of the item, helping them get the repair or replacement process started immediately. The extensive history of the part available would also make decisions on claims easy for the manufacturer. Once the complete lifecycle of a part is available through a trusted public ledger, it would be possible to see the exact time and place of manufacture, note when the part transited through the warehouses of the distributor or supplier, check when it showed-up in the seller’s inventory, and find out when and to whom it was finally sold. This detailed traceability would make it very easy to detect counterfeits, which would fail to show the expected transition history through the supply chain of authorized manufacturers, distributors, and sellers. Thus, blockchain-based systems would make the whole warranty management workflow much faster, simpler, and fraud-resistant, drastically reducing administrative and processing costs. A welcome side-effect of a transparent, fast, and efficient claim-handling process would be enhanced customer experience. Thus, blockchain technology could ultimately have a direct bearing on customer satisfaction and brand health while cutting down costs and improving the provider’s bottom-line. Don’t get too excited yet, though; this technology is still at the proof-of-concept stage in most industries with very few production deployments. However, the applicability of the technology to warranty management is pretty certain. It is just a matter of time before solutions using blockchain get proven, and as we have already discussed above, they will not only address the issues of fraudulent claims, counterfeit parts, and unclear warranty status, but will also increase customer satisfaction and reduce costs by making the claim-handling process fast, fair, and fail-safe. Therefore, if you are a warranty provider, get ready as a blockchain-based innovation is coming soon to a warranty solution near you. Want to Explore More? To gain valuable insights into how the latest innovations can help you stay ahead of the market, register for our webinar with a guest speaker from IDC, on September 10, where we discuss the latest innovations transforming warranty management. [1]IBM: Powering warranty reinvention (https://www.ibm.com/downloads/cas/D6QBER28)
Showcase its Industry 4.0 Enabled Intelligent Solution at the WCM Conference 2019
SANTA CLARA, Calif., March 11, 2019 Tavant, a leading provider of aftermarket solutions, announced today that it is a premium sponsor of the 15th Annual Warranty Chain Management Conference (WCM) 2019, to be held in Orlando, Florida, March 12-14, 2019. Tavant will be showcasing Industry 4.0 enabled Tavant Warranty, an integrated solution for end-to-end warranty lifecycle management. The solution helps organizations improve the operational efficiency, productivity, speed, and accuracy of their warranty management operations to succeed in a rapidly changing business environment. Tavant will also be co-presenting three key sessions at the conference: Lifetime Warranty – A timeless opportunity? Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the world of making smarter, faster, and better decisions Improve dealer experience and optimize warranty costs using an intelligent aftermarket platform These presentations will provide an understanding on how you can differentiate with connected digital service, and explore how to use artificial intelligence, RPA, digital assistants, and IoT to enable new business models and revenue streams. Our live demos will illustrate how you can increase efficiencies by optimizing your end-to-end processes for better business and customer experience. “Changing customer behavior, disruptive automation, and advances in technology are providing both opportunities as well as challenges for the aftermarket industry. As companies seek to bring visibility and predictability into their value chain, many of them are faced with the question of which solution is best suited for their specific needs,” said Roshan Pinto, Head of Aftermarket, Tavant. “Tavant Warranty is a one-of-a-kind, industry 5.0 enabled, an intelligent solution that helps organizations maximize their aftermarket revenues by over 2%, reduce claim processing time by 30%, increase supplier recovery by 50%, eliminate fraudulent claims and improve product-return cycle time by 25%,” he substantiated. Are you planning to attend WCM 19? Make sure to visit us at Booth #5 to learn how to enable a connected intelligent solution leveraging the latest digital techniques to stay ahead in today’s increasingly competitive market. Call (866) 9-TAVANT or e-mail [email protected] to schedule a meeting. About Tavant Warranty Tavant Warranty is a flexible, user-friendly, and effective warranty management solution for the complete warranty lifecycle of original equipment manufacturers and aftermarket industries. Its unique cross-functional integrations structure connects business departments and leads to a rapid reduction in warranty costs and reserves, increased supplier recovery, and enhanced reserves forecasting accuracy. The system backed by AI results in better workflows for manufacturers, which in turn improves cash flow, thereby improving financial health and profitability for the organization. About Tavant: Headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Tavant is a digital products and platforms company that provides impactful results to its customers across North America, Europe, and Asia-Pacific. Founded in 2000, the company employs over 2500 people and is a recognized top employer. Tavant is creating an AI-powered intelligent lending enterprise by reimagining customer experiences, driving operational efficiencies and improving collaboration. Find Tavant on LinkedIn and Twitter. Media Contact: Vibhor Mishra Tavant 408.519.5400 [email protected]
Lifetime Warranty—a Timeless Opportunity?
Starman and his Tesla Roadster became the first automotive satellite of the sun when they were launched into space, as part of the payload, during SpaceX’s “Falcon Heavy” test flight. Based on the distance Starman has covered, the warranty on his Tesla has expired long ago. According to [i]whereisroadster.com, Starman’s Roadster has exceeded its 36000-mile warranty more than 13,000 times over in the past year. Should Starman have taken a lifetime warranty on his Roadster? Well, it depends, since “lifetime” warranties are most often “limited” warranties, and the definition of “lifetime” varies widely. Definitions range between the true lifetime of the product, the period when the product is owned by the first buyer, the period till the point that the production and sale of the specific version or model are stopped, and other narrower definitions. Marketing gimmick or reality? Longer warranties do seem to have become a competitive weapon in numerous industries. Some companies—Midas being a very well-known example—have actually built their whole brand around this concept, and have been very successful. But do customers really get benefitted? It seems they do. As a popular Warranty magazine[1] puts it: “In June 2009, the Detroit News reported that Rachel Veitch of Orlando FL was still driving her yellow 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente, with 557,000 miles on the odometer and counting. Over the past 45 years, she has taken advantage of numerous lifetime warranties. Veitch is on her seventh Midas muffler, and thank you, gentlemen, for the lifetime warranty,” writes the author of the article, reporter Neal Rubin. “She’s had three sets of Sears shock absorbers, also through a lifetime warranty. And though the number seems high, she claims to have had 16 free batteries, courtesy of J.C. Penney and Firestone.” The complex nature of lifetime warranties Lifetime warranties present challenges in the area of cost and pricing models since it is very difficult to predict events over such long time spans. What makes things even more complex is the fact that different types of products have significantly different failure patterns in the long term. Digital products, for example, have very few moving parts, and therefore have a front-loaded failure pattern. If they do not fail early in their lifetime, they may have a relatively failure-free lifetime. Industrial machinery on the other hand, with lots of moving parts, suffer constant wear and tear, and the rate of failure usually increases over time. Due to these uncertainties, some OEMs are transferring the warranty reserve burden for lifetime warranties to franchisees and partners. Other forms of warranties, like the third party extended warranties, service contracts, and labor warranties, are also being used to transfer the warranty risks away from OEMs while still providing customers the peace of mind that they seek. Another interesting development is the advent of ‘Digital Twins’. The data and intelligence obtained from digital twins may soon allow us to get much better predictive models, making it easier to design long-term warranty offerings. In conclusion, though lifetime warranties can be used as a differentiator for competitive advantage and customer loyalty, they can also often be very complex, due to the ambiguity around the terms of such warranties and the difficulties in arriving at reasonable cost and pricing models. It is wise to ensure that such offerings are backed by in-depth analysis and strategic intent. To gain valuable insights into challenges around developing cost and pricing models for lifetime warranties, and how technology can help you stay ahead of the market, please come and listen to our speakers at the WCM conference 2019. [i] https://www.whereisroadster.com/
Re-invent Dealer Experience with AI Platform
The automotive and automotive aftermarket industries are some of the oldest and most established industries. Historically, these industries have faced less disruption than their equally-established counterparts. But aftermarket industry as a whole is drastically affected by several major disruptions, in particular, digitization, shifting competitive dynamics, and changing consumer preferences. And, unlike other sectors, it is changing faster, and the shift has been dramatic. First, new players are beginning to enter the automotive market and established companies have been changing their business models – a trend that is expected to continue in the future. When it comes to consumer preferences, millennials are less interested in car ownership while stricter regulations on emissions are giving rise to electric vehicles. Additionally, with the sudden expansion of next-gen technologies such as AI, IoT, cloud computing, and human-machine interfaces, the automotive aftermarket is facing a wide range of challenges. Some challenges faced by enterprises today in the aftermarket industry include: Aftermarket processes suffer from high latency and lagged response due to legacy and disjointed systems, Lack of customer analytics across channels Increasing regulatory, quality and environmental compliance needs Long cycle time for ‘detection to correction’ in case of issues to be resolved Revenue leakage to spurious spare parts in the market Lack of feedback system for gauging the effectiveness of change management, warranty management Legacy systems are not enabling the customer to do self-service Yet, along with these challenges, warranty management remains one of the industry’s most important and imperative issues. Auto manufacturers and their dealers must leverage an effective warranty management system to win and retain customers. Adopting a few important approaches can help businesses address these challenges, optimize their warranty costs, and enhance their customer experience. Consolidate warranty systems & processes Build extensive validations into the claims entry processes to capture accurate and consistent claims data to manage entitlement verification, pre-warranty authorization, claims verification, and approvals automatically. An efficient and streamlined claims process is important to automate warranty management. Instead of maintaining several systems, centralize all aspects of warranty management including analytics, registration, claims, part returns, and supplier recovery. An integrated system that provides a single view of all information will undeniably cut down duplicate manual efforts and also improve the data consistency. Minimize repeat part returns to reduce warranty cost Companies should only request returns if they need to perform failure analysis or drill down the trends in consumption to proactively identify future problems. For this, it is crucial to automate your supplier claim process to: Decrease the amount of time from failure to claim Minimize the corrective action cycle to avoid continuing to manufacture defective products Reclaim more warranty costs faster from a broader base of suppliers Create a more credible and cleaner supplier claim data Promote supplier collaboration in cut down warranty costs Improve Warranty, Quality, and Reliability Analysis Gaining good failure data from customers, dealers, and distributors will enable brands to enhance product quality and recover a higher percentage of warranty costs from suppliers. Businesses need to analyze warranty data to identify and address emerging issues and factors contributing to warranty costs. Also, to prevent further warranty failures, organizations need to monitor key warranty metrics such as warranty as a percentage of revenue, cost per unit (CPU) Incorporate warranty management into your analytics and decision support systems Managing a warranty in a reactive mode is no longer adequate in today’s digitalized manufacturing industry, which is under a lot of pressure from evolving customers’ expectations. Companies need to react to customer demand more efficiently, and for this, they need to have proactive warranty management to make an analytics-driven decision in three significant areas, such as: Issue prediction, detection, and warning Warranty and accrual forecasting Service parts demand management and service contract optimization Based on this data, organizations can anticipate emerging issues and determine potential recall, predict future warranty costs, scrupulously forecast spare parts demand, and subsequently, plan inventory and production accordingly. Build customer experiences from meaningful insights Businesses must integrate the customer data, store the information in place and keep it integrated for a personalized experience to delight their customers. Get a unified 360-degree view of your data to enrich personalization, segmentation, behavior analysis, and loyalty programs to improve your customer experiences. The Road Ahead: The digital transformation can lead to a significant opportunity for aftermarket businesses to streamline their operations. It can be done by shedding non-value-adding functions and unlocking capital from redundant infrastructure while taking in a broader service portfolio that contributes to better margins. The task of optimizing controls on warranty spend is daunting. The needs of the dealer as well as customer experience, both are of paramount importance at every stage. However, leveraging an intelligent aftermarket platform, organizations can realize a significant reduction in warranty costs, increase operational efficiency while improving product quality and customer satisfaction. Reshape business with AI Our customized warranty solution with its artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities can help you increase aftermarket revenues, calculate accurate warranty pricing – as well as manage claims and warranty reserves. Tavant Warranty On-Demand is an AI-powered enterprise warranty platform offered on the Salesforce cloud. The on-demand platform offers end-to-end warranty lifecycle management and is the only solution of its kind on the force.com platform. It provides cross-functional integrations with legacy and ERP systems for data consistency and integrity and enables organizations to reduce warranty costs, increase supplier recovery, and improve aftermarket efficiency. Want to Explore More? To gain better insights and to learn how to optimize your warranty cost mail us at [email protected].
Empower your Aftermarket Business with Intelligent Decisions
The Changing Aftermarket Industry According to a global strategic business [i]report, the global automotive aftermarket industry is expected to reach $722.8 billion by 2020. This rising demand for aftermarket parts and services is driving new growth and revenue opportunities for automotive aftermarket organizations. Moreover, digital transformation is re-imagining the automotive industry. Platform-based innovation and hyper-connectivity are shaping the new world of the automobile. Interestingly, aftermarket, the secondary market of the automotive industry is also experiencing this paradigm shift from traditional legacy systems to the digitalized world powered by AI, Machine Learning, IoT, Big Data, Analytics and Mobility. Rising Customer Expectations There is a significant change in the customer buying behavior which has acted as a catalyst in the progress of automotive aftermarket. Interestingly, today’s consumers are keeping their vehicles longer and are more aware of the importance of preventive maintenance and scheduled servicing to maximize the lifetime value of their vehicles. Furthermore, in today’s modern parts marketplace, the millennial customers have become more sophisticated and mobile-oriented while staying connected with their local automobile retailer. They are more in control of the buying process than ever before – with the ability to price, source, and obtain products and parts from a wide variety of sources, including spurious parts suppliers who don’t have the same overheads as the OEM. Needless to say, the consumers are now expecting a seamless experience spanning via omnichannel including physical retail supply shops, apps, websites and so on. Data, Data Everywhere The exponential growth of connectivity and data in manufacturing is drifting aftermarket services towards a new era. The next generation of tools and processes is equipped with next-gen technologies that enable unprecedented collection and transmission of data, which can be exploited to improve aftermarket operations. However, the aftermarket value chain is still highly segmented in disparate data silos. Each player focuses on its perimeter, where it exercises a strategic control thanks to its assets (parts IP, integrated offering, global network, and so on). Business models are still primitive and rely on service contracts (diagnosis, repair, parts, and maintenance) using a transactional mode (cost per operation). Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning to Rescue Leveraging IoT technologies and platforms built into devices have increased the potential for new revenue streams through innovative data sharing/insight opportunities. And the good news is the large volumes of data generated by IoT devices can now be understood, acted upon and monetized with the help of AI and ML. Organizations can consider integrating IoT data with the existing warranty data to obtain new insights into their customers, products, and operations. In turn, this can lead to optimized product service, enhanced support processes, and the provision of new and differentiating customer experiences, all of which can help in driving revenue. Eventually, improved warranty performance has a direct impact on the customer experience; for example, if a consumer feels that a company acknowledges when products fail to meet up with their expectations, they are more likely to stay in the future, building brand loyalty. The time to act is Now If you are looking to implement a world-class warranty solution without investing heavily in infrastructure or the resources required to deploy & maintain the solution at your premises; our on-demand solution is tailor-made for you. By applying AI and machine learning algorithms to massive amounts of customer data, Tavant’s enterprise warranty solution TWOD on the Salesforce Cloud combines its warranty solution expertise with industry best practices to offer end-to-end warranty lifecycle management. It provides enhanced visibility and proactively populates business opportunities for the sales, service, and marketing teams in their CRM. Want to Explore More? To delve deeper, attend our engaging session on ‘Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and the world of making smarter, faster and better decisions’ at WCM 19 and learn how to unlock your sales and revenue potential or just say [email protected] to schedule a meeting.