Microsoft Dynamics Case Study: J.D. Byrider

Microsoft Dynamics Customer Solution Case Study

J.D. Byrider Junks Old Technologies and Drives Franchisees Down the Road to Success Overview ?Since we went to this development and operational model with Microsoft Country or Region: United States technologies, Our uptime has just been phenomenal, especially compared with Industry: Hard Lines Retailing and Hospitality Customer Profile others in the industry. I talk to people in other businesses locally, and nobody can J.D. Byrider franchises sell basic transportation hold a candle to our uptime?. to customers with poor credit histories, or without credit. The company has 135 locations Dave Beckman, VP & Chief Technology Officer, J.D. Byrider across 34 states and more than 1,500 system users. Collectively, the franchisees sell more J.D. Byrider is a franchise-based business that sells used vehicles than 6,500 cars per month. Ed Simnick, Tech Support Manager, Allison Payment Systems, LLC Business Situation to lower-income buyers, many of whom have credit problems. The J.D. Byrider had spent four years developing a company had spent millions of dollars and four years developing a line-of-business application system to manage their franchise business. Information analysis line-of-business application system with Sun Solaris Unix in a was difficult to achieve. With no operational Lawson application development environment. With no new system system in sight and costs continuing to climb, franchisees and Byrider's management were in sight, franchisees were left with an old, minimally supported frustrated. system running on Linux using dBase files. As a result, a high level Solution The development environment was switched to of frustration existed within their own company and the franchisee Intel-based servers with development done in group. Byrider made the decision to switch their development ASP. The line-of-business application logic was salvaged and interfaced to Microsoft SQL environment to Intel-based servers in a Microsoft SQL Server and ServerT, and functionality was updated. ASP development environment. Microsoft Business Solutions-Microsoft® Business Solutions-Axapta® was Timplemented as the enterprise accounting Axapta (now part of Microsoft Dynamics ) was selected as the solution. enterprise accounting package. Within 12 months, the new solution Benefits ? Critical application problems reduced was operational. Since the implementation, franchisees and ? The line-of-business system provides higher managers can view their business operations in real time. Critical functionality and workflow support at 16 percent less cost application problems have been reduced by more than 93 percent, ? Franchisees can focus on growing their operational costs have been slashed, and franchisee satisfaction is businesses high.

Situation The Never-Ending Development Story J.D. Byrider bills themselves as the industry Byrider had spent millions of dollars and four leader and North America's largest chain of years developing a line-of-business used car sales and special financing application system to support its franchisees. dealerships with 135 locations in 34 states. The solution was being developed using Sun Most of the J.D. Byrider dealerships are Solaris Unix in a Lawson application individual, turnkey, franchised businesses development environment. The extended that are part of a national system. development period left users without a new system and no realistic date for its "All the hassles of the Michael Maenhout, Senior Vice President and completion. It also left the existing Linux Chief Information Officer, says, "All the production system with minimal maintenance day-to-day hassles of the day-to-day administration are and support and little new functionality or administration are removed from them (the franchisees). They development. get 99.99% uptime and system availability. removed from them (the They don't have to worry about the latest In 2000, Michael Maenhout was hired as franchisees). They get virus, upgrades to the software, backups, etc. Senior Vice President and Chief Information We do that-we are a full service information Officer. It was incumbent on his information 99.99% uptime and technology provider to them." Byrider is a technology group to demonstrate that they system availability. They cert... [download for more]