Lamborghini accelerates time-to-value with IBM Lotus and WebSphere technologies

Versione Italiana

Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A is one of the world’s most prestigious manufacturers of high-performance sports cars. Based near Bologna in northern Italy, the company employs 672 people and achieved turnover of €346 million in 2006.

Lamborghini operates through a network of nearly 100 dealerships, spread across the world. Dealers need to remain in close contact with the company’s head office to order new cars and spare parts, and to keep up-to-date with the latest marketing programmes and business operating procedures.

Until 2003, the company relied mainly on traditional channels – telephone, mail and email – to handle communication with this dealer network. This necessitated considerable paperwork, and it was difficult to support global operations in a responsive manner due to the wide range of time-zones in which the dealerships operate. Lamborghini realised that both of these issues could be addressed by providing browser-based access to its central systems via a Web portal.

Building a portal

Lamborghini implemented a solution based on IBM WebSphere Portal Express. The portal was initially rolled out to 50 of the dealerships, and is now used by more than 100 dealers and service centres.

WebSphere Portal enables dealers to interface directly with Lamborghini’s ordering systems, which run on an IBM DB2 database. The solution cuts paperwork and reduces manual processing for Lamborghini staff, as there is no longer any need to re-key data into the central system.

The company was immediately impressed with the flexibility and ease-of-use of the new portal infrastructure: the portal project provided a great platform to build on. IBM WebSphere Portal Express provides a highly flexible, scalable architecture which the Lamborghini IT team can easily extend to deliver new services, as and when the business needs them.

The interoperability of WebSphere Portal Express – not only with other IBM software, but also with third party applications and components – makes it an ideal platform for rapid deployment of new functionalities. If and when Lamborghini feels the need to move towards a full Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), IBM WebSphere technologies will provide the perfect environment for it.

Promoting collaboration

With the basic portal in place, Lamborghini began to think about extending the solution. Working with Tecla, an IBM Premier Business Partner, the company decided to integrate IBM Lotus Sametime and IBM Lotus QuickPlace into the portal, providing a host of collaboration options for the dealer network.

The integration and customisation of the new applications went very smoothly: everything was up and running within a month. The professionalism of Tecla, working closely with the in-house team, meant that there were no unpleasant surprises – the project was completed on schedule and on budget.

Lamborghini has used Lotus QuickPlace to set up an electronic notice board for the dealers, with pre-defined forms allowing them to request spare parts for classic Lamborghini models. Even if parts are in short supply or are no longer manufactured, dealers now have a good chance of finding what they need.

Lotus Sametime instant messaging adds a further channel of communication, making it easy for dealers to discuss their needs and work together to solve problems in real time, wherever they are in the world.

The whole purpose of the portal project was to improve Lamborghini’s communications – not only between the dealerships and head office, but between the individual dealers themselves. Integrating the Lotus collaboration tools with the existing WebSphere portal has made a huge contribution to the dealers’ ability to cooperate with one another and deliver what their customers need.

Tecla also deployed a corporate intranet for Lamborghini, built on the same WebSphere Portal infrastructure. The intranet enables Lamborghini to publish the latest operational procedure documents and information quickly and easily, ensuring that the dealer network is kept fully informed about the latest developments. It has also simplified task and event management, making it easy for head office to allocate jobs to area managers worldwide.

The immediacy and simplicity with which documents and applications can be accessed online is the main advantage of the solution. It is easy to use and to extend, helping IT Staff to introduce new functionalities and meet emerging business needs.

Teaming for success

Tecla has also provided extensive training for Lamborghini’s in-house team, helping the company to self-manage many of the components of the solution.

“I think a lot of credit should be given to the Lamborghini IT team,” says Carlo Visani, President of Tecla. “They were fully engaged with this project right from the start, and their hands-on approach will really help them make the most of this solution in the future.”

Marco Capelli at Tecla agrees: “Lamborghini is in a great position to get maximum value from their investment – the solution will really improve the company’s ability to share knowledge and communicate effectively at all levels. We are looking forward to helping them upgrade to IBM WebSphere Portal 6.0 and IBM Lotus Quickr – the next generation of Lotus QuickPlace – in the near future.”

Working closely with Tecla has been a rewarding experience for the Lamborghini team – “We have really benefited from their technical skills and professional approach. The combination of their expertise and the new IBM WebSphere and Lotus technologies is already delivering real business value for Lamborghini and its dealer network.”