Case Study

Piaggio Customer and Dealer

Management
System

an
EBSolute success story
Porting and Re-development of Customer and
Dealer Management System for Piaggio
Vehicles Private Ltd (PVPL) is a classic example
to showcase EBSolutes expertise in Microsoft
technologies, Microsoft SQL Server and
Microsoft SharePoint Services.

for a long time. Security concerns were also

present due to the distributed environment in
which the application was deployed.
Due to separate applications installed for each
dealer, it was virtually difficult for Piaggio to
track the daily work of the dealers. The only
inputs they got were from the dealers
themselves through emails. Hence, Piaggio
wanted a system wherein they could track the
dealers and boost their business

The Client
Piaggio Vehicles Pvt. Ltd (India), producer of 3
and 4 wheeler vehicles, is a 100% subsidiary of
Piaggio & C. Spa, Italy. It has around 300 dealers
across the country. Piaggio developed an
elementary Dealer Management System to help
the dealers organize their way of working in
2003-2004.
Through the Dealer Management System,
Piaggio wanted its dealers to follow the set of
practices that it had conceptualized, to do away
with the mundane paper work and help service
the customers efficiently, which would then
lead to a better business for Piaggio.

Figure 1 Disconnected Model - Piaggio Original System

The Challenge

Technology

The Dealer Management System by Piaggio was

the first step towards total automation. With
inputs from the dealers to understand their way
of working, and to incorporate certain business
processes of Piaggio. The Dealer Management
System was designed in a cost effective
manner.

ASP .Net 2.0 with MVC architecture, .Net

Framework 3.5, Microsoft SQL Server
2005/2008, AJAX, JQuery, LINQ, Microsoft
SharePoint Services.

Piaggio decided to keep the technology simple

by developing the application in ASP with MS
Access as the database. The application was
deployed as a standalone application at the
dealerships. The dealers had to invest in a
server and set up a local area network to allow
the users to access the system.
The original Dealer Management System had
some known design constraints. Coupled with
the limitations of MS Access database such as
limited database size, easy to tamper data; it
was not possible to continue using the system

EBSolutes Solution
In 2006, EBSolute offered its expertise in
application development and migration to
Piaggio.
EBSolute suggested a two-phased approach to
Piaggio. The first phase would involve the
porting of the application with the data
migrated to a single database in a centralized
model. This would act like a standby application
until EBSolute developed expertise and
understand complete functionalities and needs
of the system. The second phase would involve
a complete redevelopment of the application.
The new system would incorporate the new
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needs of the dealers and the management at

Piaggio and address the issues previously faced
by the dealers.

Porting of Dealer Management System to

Internet Dealer Management System
EBSolute decided to go in for a web application
based model to ensure the system be scalable
yet stable.

EBSolute was aware that network connectivity

issue would be an issue in this centralized
system. EBSolute decided to rewrite the parts of
the code, which were heavy on the client side in
ASP 2.0 along with some Visual Basic dlls. This
ensured that only minimum data would flow
between the server and client. This also helped
in creating user-friendly screens especially for
complex screens.

The IT head of Piaggio has acknowledged the

data migration work and applauds the way the
EBSolute team has worked towards a problem.

The original Dealer Management System had no

reporting feature. Reports for the dealers and
the Piaggio management were developed as per
their needs. The reports were created using the
client-side reporting feature of SQL Server
Reporting Service (SSRS). Some reports were
developed using .Net technology.
Figure 2 Centralized Web Application based Model
implemented by EBSolute

EBSolute decided to use Microsoft SQL server

2005 as the database in the centralized system
because of its robustness and scalability
features.
Data migration from MS Access to SQL Server
2005 was a challenging task as there was no
assurance that the data in the Access file was
error-free. Instances of data mismatches proved
that the data had been tampered. It was
necessary to standardize the data used by the
application.
A special tool complete with graphical user
interface (GUI) was developed by EBSolute in
VB .Net especially for migration of data. This
tool helped EBSolute and Piaggio support staff
migrate the data in correct format as required
by Piaggio. The data from the MS Access
database was moved to an intermediate
database with the necessary changes done. This
data was then approved by the concerned
dealer before it was migrated to the central SQL
server.

A complete new module was introduced

especially for people at Piaggio to view and
monitor the dealers and their daily tasks.
Through this module, they could generate
reports on the dealers using various criteria.
Role and time based security was introduced.
SSL certificates were used for authentication of
the users.
The next step
The application was successfully ported and
deployed in 2007. By then, EBSolute had
enough domain expertise and understood the
functionalities of the system in totality.

The Redevelopment of Internet Dealer

Management System by EBSolute
EBSolute used the Waterfall Development
methodology for the complete software
development of this application with a little
customization to garner maximum gains.
EBSolute first contacted Piaggio and the dealers
to know their requirements in totality. All the
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Case Study

requirements were taken care in the design

stage itself. A prototype was then shown to
Piaggio for approval. Necessary changes were
incorporated before the actual development
started.

SQL Server
successfully.

2005

to

SQL

server

2008

EBSolute could successfully migrate around

160 GB data from Microsoft SQL server 2005 to
2008 with complete change of database design
in less than 48 hours including taking the
backups and other processes associated with
actual migration.

Authentication for the users in now

implemented customizing the ASP .Net role
membership provider along with ASP .Net
forms authentication. SSL certificates are issued
manually to the users in a deliberate attempt to
prevent misuse of the certificates if issued
automatically.
Validation framework was developed in Ajax to
make the system user friendly.
Figure 3 Software Development Life Cycle

EBSolute redeveloped the application in .Net

3.5 along with the Model, View, and Controller
(MVC) design pattern. EBSolute made sure that
the data flowing between the client and the
server was reduced to minimum. The load on
the client side has reduced drastically with most
of the transactions occurring on the server. Due
to this, the time taken to load and reload a page
has decreased drastically. A notable point to
make is that there is a response time of only 2
seconds to load a page which has more than
25,000 records to display after a query run on
the database.
It was decided to shift to Microsoft SQL server
2008 for the database. The database design
went in for a complete change so that data was
stored in an efficient manner. Care was taken
that data was not duplicated unless required.
LINQ to SQL was used to access the database.
This helped in improving the performance of
the application. EBSolute leveraged the
integration functionality of SQL server (SSIS) to
migrate the data of around 300 dealers from

GUI was simplified so that the user does not

need to spend more than 2 minutes to fill data
for a single complex form. Prefilled information,
highlighting the mandatory fields etc makes the
GUI user friendly.
EBSolute has built Business Intelligence in to the
Customer and Dealer Management System to
help the dealers serve their customers in an
efficient manner.
Reports and analysis are provided to the Piaggio
management and the dealers as per their needs
using server side reporting feature of Microsoft
SQL server. Heavy reports are created offline
and shown to the users using the reporting
service of SQL servers. It was decided to do
away with the stored procedures used
previously for reporting and use LINQ (.Net
Language Integrated Query) to SQL.
A call register application has been developed
using SharePoint services. The application is
complete with a workflow in place. The
application is useful for the dealers and Piaggio
to register defects in the Customer and Dealer
Management System.

Case Study

Reminder service for certain processes has been

implemented through Short Messaging Service
(SMS) and emails.

that the system performance is not hampered

due to the increase in the number of users as
the number of dealers increase.

Manual entries for the spares/vehicles

received/sent were to be created by the dealer
in the original system. The Customer and Dealer
Management System capture all this data from
the SAP of Piaggio and a nightly batch file
updates the system. This saves the time of the
dealers in manual entry and prevents errors in
entering the data. An error management
system is also in place in case the data received
from SAP has errors.

Provision of Analysis and daily trends needed by

the Piaggio management and the dealers has
paved a path for the future requirements from
Piaggio to provide dashboards to all their
executives.

Benefits
The new Customer and Dealer Management
System have ensured that the work of the
dealers is completely automated with minimal
human intervention. Piaggio can now track the
dealers and their business through the various
reports and analysis. This has seen a boost in
their business.

Piaggio also has plans to automate the process

of dealer selection along with building Business
intelligence for the criteria of dealer selection.
Piaggio also plans to automate the process of
dealer monitoring on certain pre-defined
criteria. This will help Piaggio with increase in
business as the dealers will be forced to
perform.
Plans are also afoot to create a complete
business process management system with
workflows and rules in place for the system.

Piaggio is completely satisfied with the efforts

of EBSolute in this project. They are 100%
satisfied with the results obtained from using
the system. The dealers are also realizing the
benefits of the system and are using the
system out of choice and not by force.
Customer satisfaction has also been achieved
through the use of the new Customer and
Dealer Management System. The dealers have
also benefitted tremendously as a proper
workflow has come into place and they are able
to garner maximum benefits in terms of sales
and service by using the Customer and Dealer
Management System.
With a centralized system in place, data
tampering has been averted; also, the system
ensures that the users cannot manipulate
information in the system as was previously
done.

Roadmap
Load balancing for the servers will be
introduced in the next release. This will ensure
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