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J.D. Byrider is a franchise-based business that sells used vehicles to lower-income buyers, many of whom have credit problems. The company had spent millions of dollars and four years developing a line-of-business application system with Sun Solaris Unix in a Lawson application development environment. With no new system in sight, franchisees were left with an old, minimally supported system running on Linux using dBase files. As a result, a high level of frustration existed within their own company and the franchisee group. Byrider made the decision to switch their development environment to Intel-based servers in a Microsoft SQL Server and ASP development environment. Microsoft Business Solutions?Axapta (now part of Microsoft Dynamics) was selected as the enterprise accounting package. Within 12 months, the new solution was operational. Since the implementation, franchisees and managers can view their business operations in real time. Critical application problems have been reduced by more than 93 percent, operational costs have been slashed, and franchisee satisfaction is high.
Situation J.D. Byrider bills themselves as the industry leader and North America's largest chain of used car sales and special financing dealerships with 135 locations in 34 states. Most of the J.D. Byrider dealerships are individual, turnkey, franchised businesses that are part of a national system.
Michael Maenhout, Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, says, "All the hassles of the day-to-day administration are removed from them (the franchisees). They get 99.99% uptime and system availability. They don't have to worry about the latest virus, upgrades to the software, backups, etc. We do that?we are a full service information technology provider to them." Byrider is a certified Microsoft partner by virtue of their business relationship with their franchisees. The company has been highly successful, as evidenced by their recognition as the #6 best franchise in the U.S. by Success magazine in 2000. Byrider franchises sell five- to ten-year-old, basic transportation to people with credit problems. In fact, many of Byrider's customers have experienced multiple bankruptcies. Why would a company want to target this difficult market? Byrider believes this used car segment of the automobile industry is the largest franchise market in the world. The average car on the road in the U.S., according to Byrider, is over eight years old. This results in a successful business venture for the company, selling what is always in demand, even if there is a downturn in the economy.
Additional sales are generated through the financing program, extended service contracts, and insurance products.
The Never-Ending Development Story Byrider had spent millions of dollars and four years developing a line-of-business application system to support its franchisees. The solution was being developed using Sun Solaris Unix in a Lawson application development environment. The extended development period left users without a new system and no realistic date for its completion. It also left the existing Linux production system with minimal maintenance and support and little new functionality or development. In 2000, Michael Maenhout was hired as Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer. It was incumbent on his information technology group to demonstrate that they could deliver on the promises of a new system both quickly and cost effectively. "The CASE tools being used for development were not robust enough and the cost of the infrastructure and software was too high compared to what we could get from a Microsoft solution with Intel servers," Maenhout says. Two Options for the Foundation Maenhout saw two options for their development environment. The first was to stay with their Linux-based servers and use Java. The other option was an Intel-based server solution with Microsoft technologies, initially using ASP and later Microsoft ASP.NET for development.
Byrider opted for the Microsoft solution set, including Microsoft SQL Server for the data store, for several reasons. They believed that with the Microsoft solution, there was a single company standing behind the products, training was readily available, talent was readily available, there was no question that they would be able to make it work, and they felt confident that the company would still be there in the future. In addition, they believed the cost of a Microsoft solution compared with a Linux/Java solution was basically the same. With no additional cost and less risk, the obvious choice was the Microsoft solution.
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