With its scenic country roads, emerald green valleys and historic villages, the United Kingdom is a haven for motorists, and many of them happen to be motorcyclists. There are one million motorcycles on the roads in the U.K., and of these, more than 110,000 are Kawasakis. Established in 1974, Kawasaki Motors U.K. Ltd. (Kawasaki) imports and distributes both commercial and recreational vehicles, and earns annual revenues close to ¢G65 million (U.S.$93.1 million). Ninety percent of this revenue is from the sale of its motorcycles--a market that has grown by 70 percent in the U.K. within the last 3 years.

With this steadily growing volume of sales, communication between corporate headquarters and the company's 240 dealers in the U.K. needs to be as efficient as possible so that the dealers can place and track orders quickly and use marketing information to their best advantage. In the past, Kawasaki gave its dealers access to customer service applications for product, parts and warranty data on an IBM AS/400 server over an X.25 dial-up network using British Telecom public access telephone lines. However, as access demand exceeded the capacity of this network, dealers frequently got busy signals. Many of the dealers ended up ordering over the telephone, which kept staff members at Kawasaki headquarters from doing more productive marketing work.

Kawasaki knew it was not giving its dealers the level of customer service they needed to help them sell Kawasaki products in a very competitive market. "We recognized that we weren't going to be able to advance on the technology of our dial-up network," says Brian Haselgrove, IT manager, Kawasaki Motors U.K. "e-business was obviously the way to go to establish better communications with our dealerships. Kawasaki worldwide has looked to IBM solutions throughout the years, and we knew that IBM could help us with our newest challenge by providing a scalable, robust e-business solution."

We're extremely pleased with the security, integration and ease of use that Host Publisher gives us. It's enabled us to become an e-business without sacrificing the investment we've made in our legacy applications."

--Brian Haselgrove

IBM referred Kawasaki to the U.K.-based Triangle Group of Companies, a leading global supplier of information technology solutions as well as an IBM Business Partner and a Lotus Premier Partner. Triangle worked with Kawasaki to develop an IBM WebSphere Host Publisher solution that leveraged Kawasaki's existing applications on the AS/400 server and its legacy data residing in IBM DB2 Universal Database. The solution utilizes Host Publisher Server and IBM WebSphere Application Server to provide access to the applications through any Web browser. This enables Kawasaki dealers to make use of robust and cost-efficient Internet connectivity to quickly order parts, research warranties and check inventory.

With its new Host Publisher customer service solution, Kawasaki can reassign staff members who were engaged in order-taking to more productive areas in customer service, working to build relationships with dealers, anticipating their needs and profiling their customers. "The IBM solution is enabling us to reallocate resources and focus on helping our dealers build repeat business with customers. When the numbers are in, that's likely to have a significant effect on our bottom line, because repeat business involves little or no customer acquisition cost," says Haselgrove. "This IBM B2B solution is helping Kawasaki remain an industry leader in a high-growth market."

A fast, efficient way to do business
Kawasaki dealers use desktop Web browsers to access Kawasaki's secure DealerNet Web site , while the mobile sales force is equipped with IBM ThinkPads, which gives them fast access to sales data wherever they may travel. The DealerNet homepage gives users a choice of several functions. Entering parts orders, reviewing warranty claims and checking inventory require Host Publisher, which Web-enables the legacy files in DB2 Universal Database along with the customer service applications that dealers used with the X.25 network. Each function leads the user to a choice of options that brings up the needed application for orders or inquiries.

Building Integration Objects
IBM WebSphere Host Publisher consists of Host Publisher Server and Host Publisher Studio and is shipped with WebSphere Application Server, Standard Edition. Triangle used Host Publisher Studio to create Integration Objects (which are JavaBeans(tm)) and build them into Kawasaki's legacy applications. Host Publisher Studio provides point-and-click features that lead the developer through the process of building applications by identifying transactions and labeling data for retrieval. Host Publisher parses out the Integration Objects to Host Publisher Server and WebSphere Application Server as JavaServer Pages(tm) (JSP(tm)) and XML tags. Working with Host Publisher Server, WebSphere Application Server provides the runtime environment for the JSPs and XML tags.

Combining Host Publisher and Domino for a unified front end
At the same time Kawasaki was moving its legacy applications to the Web with Host Publisher, it also decided to create a new solution to deliver marketing material to its dealers, replacing the extensive mailing and faxing program it had maintained over the years. Triangle combined the Host Publisher solution with a Lotus Notes e-mail application to produce a single front end with a unified Internet look and feel. To achieve this integration with Host Publisher, Triangle leveraged Domino Application Server Release 5 to retrieve JSPs from WebSphere Application Server, insert the Web page content into a graphic user interface framework and send the assembled page out to the Web through IBM HTTP server. For e-mail and marketing publications, Domino accesses Lotus Notes databases and places that content within the same framework.

All components run on AS/400 servers. Legacy files are stored on a back-end AS/400 server and are mirrored on the front-end AS/400 server for security. "We've built in security between the two servers to make sure that nobody from the Web side can get through to the back-end AS/400 server," explains Haselgrove.

"We're extremely pleased with the security, integration and ease of use that Host Publisher gives us," he adds. "It's enabled us to become an e-business without sacrificing the investment we've made in our legacy applications."

Planning for continued improvements
Kawasaki's Host Publisher solution is the basis of the manufacturer's three-year strategy to improve communications between headquarters and dealers. In the future, dealers will be able to place orders for products online. The product ordering capability will call for new applications based on business rules for apportioning products equitably among dealers--a critical factor since Kawasaki's flagship products are frequently in high demand and limited supply. To create these new applications, Kawasaki will again use the Java(tm) development environment provided by Host Publisher Studio.

Kawasaki is certain that it has the right infrastructure to continue improving its communications with dealers. As Haselgrove remarks, "I have to confess that we don't look a great deal outside of IBM. And our Host Integration solution is just one more reason why we don't."

For more information, please contact your
IBM marketing representative or
IBM Business Partner.

Visit us at:
ibm.com/software/websphere

For more information about
Kawasaki Motors U.K., visit:
www.kawasaki.co.uk

For more information about
Triangle Group, visit:
www.triangle-group.com

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This case study illustrates how one customer uses IBM products. Many factors have contributed to the results and benefits described. IBM does not guarantee comparable results. All information contained herein was provided by the featured customer and IBM Business Partner. IBM does not attest to its accuracy.

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