Sony China streamlines customer and dealer

connections

"The pursuit team consisted of team members from both HP Consulting & Integration (C&I) and Global Delivery
Center China (GDCC) teams up to launch new Dealer
C&I and GDAS China Center. The collaboration during Management System that optimizes the supply chain and
the pre-sales period was crucial to understanding the accelerates information turnaround times.

customer’s requirements and to creating a winning Customer at a glance

proposal that offered Sony a practical long-term Located in Shanghai, Sony China Limited Co. is the
solution.” China subsidiary of Tokyo-based Sony Corporation. Sony
is a leading manufacturer of audio, video, communication
—Qing Zhao, GDAS China Center and information technology products for the consumer
and professional markets. Its music, motion picture,
television, computer entertainment and online businesses
"GDCC took complete ownership for the whole project
make Sony one of the most comprehensive consumer
delivery and kept up the close interaction with C&I. electronics and entertainment companies in the world.
Having a single person identified as the HP contact
made it simpler and more convenient for Sony."
—Xiao-Yin Jiang (Sandy), GDAS Delivery Manager, China Center

HP INTERNAL USE ONLY

Market pressures and customer
demands drive supply chain changes
Sony China was facing challenges in a number of key
areas. Trade-cost pressures from market growth were
elevating the cost of maintaining traditional dealer
channels. As a result, Sony China was looking for ways
to optimize supply chain processes to reduce supplier
operational costs and increase communication efficiency
with dealers.
At the same time, Sony China was focused on improving
customer service levels to maintain customer loyalty in a
highly competitive marketplace. Providing services on
demand to customers and enabling personalization of
products to customers were two ways to accomplish this.
The current IT environment at Sony China created some
challenges around streamlining the management of its
product-centric to customer-centric trade.
Components were not moving through the manufacturing
floor efficiently. System architecture was also complex, as
was order management, market data collection processes
and business-to-business functions. What’s more, Sony
China was facing an upcoming implementation of
interfaces with multiple legacy systems and Rosetta
Net/FTP connections.
One solution meets multiple
challenges and delivers time savings
Consultants from HP C&I teamed with the HP GDCC to
design and deploy a new Dealer Management System
(DMS) solution for Sony China. The solution leverages an
industry-standard BEA WebLogic portal as the front-end to
connect legacy SAP applications and legacy systems on
the back-end. Through this integration plus a Web-based
dealer portal incorporating EDI and Rossetta Net, the
DMS solution improves the supplier’s customer service
levels while reducing supplier manager workload.
Most importantly, the DMS solution enables Sony China
to respond much more quickly to customer sales trends by
significantly shortening the time it takes to retrieve sales
information from three key areas:
• Information broadcast—Information is now instantly and
simultaneously broadcast to all users. Before the DMS
solution was implemented, it took two-to-five days to
communicate the same information.
• Sales forecast and allocation—Dealer sales, inventory
and forecast data is collected and transmitted to Sony
internal departments daily or weekly, as preferred.
• Sales order and settlement—Order information
exchange is now faster and more accurate. Dealers
receive invoice information one to two days faster,
which has reduced the payment cycle.
Global delivery model makes a
difference
The Sony China DMS solution was truly a collaborative
effort: HP GDCC worked closely with HP C&I Japan as
well as HP C&I and Technology Services teams in China
to successfully leverage the joint onshore/offshore model.
The onshore C&I team led the customer engagement by
handling account planning and delivery strategizing. The
GDCC team worked closely with the account team to
gather requirements before developing and implementing
the solution.
Today, GDCC owns the DMS solution and is delivering on
all phases of the project lifecycle, including project
management, implementation support and maintenance.
GDCC is also performing business analysis requirements
as Sony China readies to move into the second phase of
the project.
2
 Challenge Solution Results

• Increase supply chain performance.
• Improve customer service levels.
• Reduce operational costs.
• Maximize IT administrative resources.
• Dealer Management Solution used
industry-standard middleware to leverage
legacy back-end systems.
• Partnerships between HP Consulting and
Integration in China and Japan, HP
Technology Services in China and HP
Global Delivery China Center created a
successful joint onshore/offshore
engagement model.
• Acceleration of information exchange
between dealers and suppliers provides
each side with important information such
as price, product and order-related
information.
• Increase in the connectivity and
collaboration between dealers and
suppliers reduces operational cost and
enables the monitoring of online orders
from purchasing, delivery, logistics,
invoicing and payments.
• Service on demand for dealers decreases
the time-to-market for products and
services.
• Automation of supply chain processes
reduces trade cost.
• Integrated network supply chain
management supports the reduction of
process redundancy and increases
execution efficiency.
• Optimization of supply chain inventory
minimizes the cost of product storage plus
carrying costs.
• Centralized network system solution
increases the level of customer service.

© 2006 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change
without notice. The only warranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements
accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional
warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

05/2006