Let us start with the first function of Demand Forecasting, which
is done by the central sales planning unit in collaboration with the
national sales companies. The company has a group of experts
for general forecasting of trends and demography. Each year,
the initial sales quotas are fixed for each model specifying the
sales requests for body-styles, engines, and high-price options. The
fulfilment of such quotas/goals by national sales companies
is monitored on a monthly basis, as it serves two functions. Firstly,
the demand forecast is reported to the financial division as part of
the firm's performance forecast. Secondly, this market information
is an input factor to calculate the sales allocation for each market.
The next function is Order Promising, where dealers place the
customer orders for cars through an online order booking system
to an order bank and receive feedback regarding delivery date and
order-status. It is easy to mistake this order booking system with a
car configurator on the internet. However, the order booking
system at dealers is not connected with the customer-oriented
car configurator on the website. In our interviews the sales
representatives noted that the internet-webpage with the car
configurator serves for information purposes only (e.g. technical
details, prices) and it is technically not possible to order directly
via the internet. In order to buy a car, customers have to visit one
of the dealer sites and consult the authorized sales personnel.
In our field research, we were able to observe several new car sales
at two different sales sites. The dealers used a software tool very
different from the modern website with the car configurator.
In our discussion with the sales managers, we were informed that
this software tool had been used since the mid-1990s and had not
been changed. The tool is based on a legacy host-system using an
interface with monochrome colours and text-based inputs.