GM combines 6 regions in dealer Web portal

DETROIT — General Motors wants all of its dealers around the globe on the same page.

GM is replacing its GM DealerWorld Web site, used by GM dealers in the United States since 1999, and five other portals used by dealers in different regions of the world. In their place will be GM GlobalConnect.

This new Web portal is designed to be a one-stop shop for dealers. It has all the software needed to do business with GM, such as ordering vehicles, submitting warranty claims and reporting deliveries.

GM's U.S. dealers will begin switching from GM DealerWorld to GM GlobalConnect in midyear and complete the move by year end. The automaker will give its U.S. dealers their first detailed look at the portal during the National Automobile Dealers Association convention, which begins Feb. 9 in San Francisco.

GlobalConnect was developed by GM's North America Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing staff over two years. "With 7,000 dealers, we are absolutely resolute we're not going to deploy it until it's right," says Bill Middlekauff, global retail business process director for Vehicle Sales, Service and Marketing. "It has to be absolutely bulletproof."

The automaker will use GM GlobalConnect to communicate with its dealerships here and in 90 other countries. The plug is being pulled on other portals that GM dealers use in Europe, the Middle East, the Asia-Pacific region and Latin America.

The new portal aims to make it easier for dealers to do business with GM.

"It's not going to take a whole lot of training. It'll be more like My MSN or My Yahoo," says Tommy Brasher, owner of Brasher Motor Co., a Chevrolet-Buick dealership in Weimar, Texas. Brasher is a member of GM's information technology dealer council.

GlobalConnect "will be easier to navigate than the current DealerWorld," he said. "Really, it's just a lot more user-friendly Web site."

For example, GM now sends messages to dealerships through DealerWorld. But a store's sales manager must peruse scores of unrelated GM messages to find the ones that pertain to his role.

Now GM will be able to deliver messages targeted to dealers according to their brands and even to individual roles within the dealership, says Jim Fisher, global portal product manager for GM's global retail integration team.

"Instead of just blasting the message out and all dealers getting it not knowing who it applies to or who should read it, now we can send it directly to salespeople at Buick dealerships" or even only those in Montana, Fisher says. "So it helps them cut through the clutter of all the messaging they get from us on a daily basis — hundreds and hundreds of messages."

GM GlobalConnect will be the only way for dealerships to access GM's new so-called workbenches.

So far, GM has Order Workbench running. It consolidates all the software applications a dealership needs to order a vehicle. The Order Workbench can be reached from the GlobalConnect home page with one click.

"Everything you possibly would need to order a vehicle is on that workbench and in the logical sequence," Middlekauff says.

Brasher concurs, saying the workbenches will combine in one place "all the things that you really need to work with during the day, whether it's sales or parts or service or orders, whatever."

Today, it's not so easy. GM lists applications on GM DealerWorld in alphabetical order. Finding the needed applications is cumbersome.

Ultimately, dealers will be able to access sales, service, parts and business administration workbenches through the GM GlobalConnect portal. All five workbenches should be operating by the end of 2009.

Other new GlobalConnect features include:

-- A sophisticated search function that allows dealers to narrow a search by date range, for instance.

-- The ability to customize the GlobalConnect home page so dealership employees see the information most important to them.

-- A My Shortcuts link that allows users to bookmark links to frequently accessed applications.

GM GlobalConnect will allow the dealership to determine the level of access for each person in the store, says Todd Peterson, manager of integrated dealer operations at GM.

"They are even empowered to see who in their store has viewed a communication," Peterson says. If a sales manager tells the dealer principal that he has not seen a particular message from GM, Peterson says the dealer will be able to retort, "I can see here that you have."