Case Study: Auto Konnect

Launch a full e-commerce website in 60 days and do so during the busiest holiday season of the year?! Seriously?

“Bringing Sherpa Marketing onboard to manage this project was definitely a great decision that brought peace of mind and results.”

Roger Caramanoff, VP Operations, Auto Konnect, LLC

Auto Konnect is a full service business-to-business firm offering a suite of outsourcing services specializing in automotive and wireless accessories verticals. Their services include support for light assembly, kitting and fulfillment and distribution as well as field team sales and marketing support and call center integration. With over 40 years of combined experience, the management team of Auto Konnect brings a wealth of innovative solutions to their customers which provide their clients significant time, money and efficiency savings

The Challenge
Auto Konnect had recently been awarded a contract with luxury automotive manufacturer Mercedes-Benz USA. Their role is to serve as the exclusive provider of wireless communications accessory parts for their vehicles to their dealer base. Auto Konnect needed to have a web site designed, developed and launched with full e-commerce capabilities which tied into Mercedes-Benz’s dealership financial system. They had 60 days and a tight budget to implement the site for the dealer rollout.

They considered managing parts of the process in-house, using the their existing staff as well as their e-commerce partner but realized that taking those individuals away from their focus on servicing their customers and growing the business was not an effective use of time, nor was it within their skill set capabilities.

The Sherpa Impact
The Auto Konnect management team and Sherpa Marketing had worked together numerous times in the previous 10 years in various roles, engagements and opportunities. It was based on these years of trust and a mutual respect for each others’ capabilities and skills working together that Sherpa Marketing was the obvious choice for this challenge.

The Sherpa team quickly identified the right web design agency partner, negotiated pricing and managed the entire development and launch within the time frame and budget defined. Sherpa Marketing developed a “request for proposal” which was sent to three web firms who specialized in designing for e-commerce application integration. Along with fielding the responses, we conducted interviews with each firm and made a recommendation to Auto Konnect. We chose the firm who was best suited for this new rollout based on experience, capabilities, budget and ability to meet the deadline. From there, we worked with Auto Konnect’s internal team, the web agency and the e-commerce application team – going literally from a “blank piece of paper” to a fully functional web site in 60 days! The new site initially launched featuring 18 products with photos, descriptions and vehicle integration matrix.

The Results
The result was a visually pleasing, clean and user-friendly website with intuitive features for the end user – the Mercedes-Benz dealership personnel. The site mainly focused on presenting the accessories parts in a logical system based on historical purchasing processes, with language familiar to the dealership personnel. Auto Konnect was thrilled with the website, earning accolades from the dealership personnel about the ease and functionality of the site! Upon launch of the website, Auto Konnect experienced a 40% increase in sales within the first six months over the previous order system. And even though we went through some scope changes throughout the course of the project, which is quite common, Sherpa Marketing was able to bring the expertise and efficiency to the project that still resulted in the project coming in under budget.  The success of this site proved to be a catalyst in helping Auto Konnect win similar business with another automotive manufacturer, as well.

MBUSAKonnect Website Preview