Automotive Industry Solutions for Architects
The automotive industry is made up of a set of multi-tiered relationships between Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), who produce vehicles and sell them to dealers, who, in turn, sell them to end customers and provide service as needed. These relationships add additional complexity to sales and service processes compared to other industries because process steps often span multiple channels and domains.
Businesses can use the Salesforce Customer 360 platform to automate business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) journeys and reduce some of the complexities that stem from processes that span multiple entities. Let’s take a look at a diagram that highlights the automotive industry’s capabilities and consider the entities involved:
- The Dealer Relationship Management capability includes processes that are shared between OEMs and dealers, such as new dealer onboarding and training.
- The Marketing capability combines audience data with direct selling models to create personalized messaging for different audience segments. OEMs are interested in broader messaging at regional or national levels while dealers are more interested in sending targeted messages about upcoming sales or special events to local community members.
- The Engagement capability involves implementing portals and similar types of digital engagement platforms. OEMs implement these platforms for dealers, who in turn implement their own platforms for their customers.
- The Commerce capability involves streamlining shopping and buying processes for both dealers and customers through online channels. It also includes the underlying processes that are used to manage financial transactions.
- The Service capability includes service management processes and support for collaboration between dealers and OEMs for issues like recalls and warranties.
- The Analytics capability consists of processes that use vehicle telematics and mobility services to translate vehicle and device data into actionable insights.
Check out Salesforce Solutions for Automotive Cloud to learn more about these capabilities.
Steps to Design Well Architected Automotive Solutions
In order to translate these business capabilities into technical solutions that automotive organizations can use, architects need to understand the underlying processes used by each entity and the data models that support them.
STEP 1 — Understand the Related Business Processes
Let’s take a deeper dive into an OEM to Dealer to Customer use case that leverages Automotive Cloud. The diagram below shows the architecture for a dealer solution that leverages data provided by an OEM to create personalized shopping experiences for customers:
The automotive industry’s multi-tier selling system requires dealers to send information about the customers they interact with to OEMs. OEMs use the data the receive from dealerships to build segments and send marketing materials.
Many dealers operate independently and have their own IT landscapes. In a lot of cases, critical customer information like order history, contracts, and other insights are stored in disparate legacy systems . As an architect, you’ll need to identify the source systems that contain relevant data and then create an integration strategy that will combine records from those systems to to deliver the most value. Use the following steps to get started:
- Use the Salesforce Diagramming Framework to map out an overall system landscape and any associated processes.
- Create a integration inventory spreadsheet to identify the data elements that need to be shared along with their sources, targets, frequency and criticality.
- Identify the appropriate method and tools for each integration see the Data Integration Decision Guide for more information.
To get started quickly, build a map of relevant multi-cloud data flows, like the ones found in this template that outlines dealership business processes.
STEP 2 Understand Automotive Cloud’s Data Model & Capabilities
Automotive dealerships often have more information about their direct customers and the specific vehicles they’ve purchased than OEMs. And since the same customers may visit multiple dealerships, different dealers may have different sets of data about the same customer. This can create challenges when it comes to delivering consistent experiences. You can start to overcome these challenges by thoroughly understanding of the automotive ecosystem and the data architecture that’s required to enable unified customer, vehicle, and retail experiences at scale.
The Automotive Cloud data model supports unified experiences by providing a set of objects and fields that are designed to store and information about customers, vehicles, parts, and accessories. This allows dealers to track and manage each step of a vehicle’s lifecycle, and use features such as Action Plans, Records Alerts, Timeline, or Interest Tags to access and share additional information with OEMs.
For additional information about this data model and related functionality
- Discover new objects provided with the Automotive Cloud data model and list of objects.
- Review the Automotive Developer Guide for more information on the objects and extensible APIs.
- Review best practice approaches for tracking products, locations and warranties.
Use a consultative approach tailored for Automotive CIO’s
In addition to the complexities related to the multi-tiered selling system, the automotive industry also has a unique set of terms and standards that are maintained by governing bodies, such as Standards for Technology in Automotive Retail (STAR). As an architect working with automotive organizations, you’ll need to understand these guidelines and be able to refer to them when discussing your proposed solutions with stakeholders. Use the links below to find more information:
If you’re interested in getting hands on experience with Automotive Cloud features sign up for an Automotive Cloud Trial Org and consider joining the Automotive Cloud Trailblazer Community Group.
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