Fax from SAP Honda Trusts in Retarus Cloud Fax Services for SAP

Handling High Volumes during Peak Hours

Honda Motor Europe (North) GmbH’s ‘SAP Customer Competence Center’ sends thousands of debit slips daily via fax to all their dealers throughout Europe. During peak hours, their fax servers were often overloaded, thus creating bottle necks and causing major issues for their dealers, as they needed to receive the itemized debit slips in a timely manner to process orders.

Objective

Cost Savings and Smooth Dealer Communication

As the prompt delivery of credit slips was critical to Honda, they started looking for a reliable alternative. Their current structure was not cost efficient, as all communications were centralized in Germany, which eliminated the possibility of minimizing transmission costs by « least cost routing ». In addition, Honda was looking for a solution that had the flexibility to factor in changes such as payment advises being delivered via email, while staying compliant with international regulations. Because of their requirements, dedicated fax servers were not an option. Honda instead chose Retarus Faxolution as its managed fax service to fax from SAP, due to inherent high levels of flexibility, minimized costs and streamlined operations.

Successful Implementation in Spite of High Security Requirements

In order to meet Honda’s high security needs, Retarus’ security experts teamed up with Honda’s IT department to configure firewalls, routers and a VPN (virtual private network). A 30-day trial was then conducted, showing that the solution provided the required levels of security and reliability in terms of fax delivery. After the trial period, Retarus Faxolution for SAP was rolled out to all Honda’s European offices.

Avoid bottlenecks with new fax service

All fax documents produced by Honda’s European offices are now digitally transmitted via Retarus’ data centers, which provide proprietary « NeverBusy » technology that guarantees no bottlenecks regardless of the size of the job. In addition, notification of delivery is automatically sent directly to the SAP system, allowing admins to monitor operations at all times.

Full Cost Transparency and Scalability

While this fax service enables Honda to fax from SAP, the company also dramatically reduced costs by switching to a pay-per-page model. Monthly reports allow Honda to precisely measure its fax costs and assign them to cost centers. There are no costs for fax hardware, software, maintenance or administration, unlike their previous fax server environment. Retarus Faxolution for SAP provides a fully scalable environment that handles any type of volumes and peaks at all times, and eliminates CAPEX as the operations grow.

Unicode Ready

Retarus Faxolution for SAP is the only fax service in the world to have received SAP AG’s « Unicode ready » quality seal. This allows Honda to exchange data on an international level, as documents will display in any language.

Ease the Burden on IT Departments and Strengthen Dealer Partnership

Flawless fax delivery is key to Honda Motor Europe (North) GmbH. By implementing Retarus Faxolution for SAP, Honda’s fax communications with its dealers have dramatically increased accuracy, deliverability, and reduced the burden on the company’s IT department. The Honda project proved to be a success from the planning stage, through implementation, and then roll-out. So successful, that Honda and Retarus intend to systematically extend their business relationship at a global scale.