Credit: GPC Asia Pacific
IT solutions provider Auslaser Business Solutions has refreshed the ageing hardware of aftermarket automotive parts business group GPC Asia Pacific.
Consisting of the Repco, Napa Auto Parts, Two Wheel Division and Sparesbox brands, GPC Asia Pacific started its relationship with Auslaser in 2016, but the extent of its recent hardware refresh didn’t come into force until 2018, where the provider, alongside hardware vendor Acer, deployed 2,500 thin clients across all of its sites.
Currently, this includes over 550 stores, 12 distribution centres and over 6,000 employees across Australia and New Zealand.
The majority of this stage of the refresh came in to replace their previous vendor's ageing models and took place in about four months, as opposed to the average time of 12 to 18 months for a typical deployment at that scale, Acer claimed.
The next stage of the business group's refresh came a year later, with Auslaser and Acer replacing outdated hardware in GCP Asia Pacific's corporate offices with 700 desktop PCs and 500 notebooks.
As a result of the refresh, GPC employees based in-store and in corporate offices claim to have greater confidence and improved capabilities due to the upgraded technology.
Haydn Wise, IT service delivery manager at GPC Asia Pacific, said having up-to-date hardware in-store was essential for the business to improve its customer service process.
“On top of this, our in-store branches don’t have a lot of bench space, so we needed sleek devices which could be tucked away, without having to compromise on quality or speed,” he said.
Beata Koropatwa, CEO at Auslaser, said one of their main priorities was to get GPC running on technology that surpassed a “quick fix” solution and could achieve a long-term return on investment.
“Being able to turn the project around as quickly as we did, meant that GPC Asia Pacific could spend more time engaging employees and customers with the technology and planning future roadmaps, rather than being bogged down by a time-consuming deployment process,” she said.
Rod Bassi, sales director for the Oceanic region at Acer, added that continuous open communication between the three parties made the process “so much more seamless than we imagined”.
This isn’t the end of the refresh journey for GPC either, as the events of 2020 have urged the supplier to look at adopting a more mobile hardware environment, emphasising notebooks and tablets rather than desktops, to support remote working.
“Now that our team has hardware in place that suits our environment and improves employee and customer experiences, we are looking ahead at future investments,” Wise said.
“We’re confident that our partnership with Acer and Auslaser will provide opportunities for ongoing transformation and support our business to continue delivering exceptional customer service now and into the future.”
