For ten years TecCom has accompanied the globally active family business Hella on its way to the top of the independent replacement part market. After the introduction of its simple and fast ordering system TecOrder, TecCom has been able to provide additional solutions to optimise business processes in the course of the years.

Comfortable and efficient guarantee handling, automated management of article, price and logistic data and the conversion to electronic invoicing have helped Hella to provide its customers around the globe the best possible service to match its extensive and powerful product line.

Hella – from lamp manufacturer to Global Player in the automobile industry

In the Hella company history of more than a hundred years, ten years are not a long time. The company was founded in 1899 in Lippstadt to manufacture lamps. Today there are 23,000 employees at 70 locations in 30 countries developing innovative products to ensure the continuous success and growth of the company. With sales of 3.3 billion euros, Hella belongs to the Top 50 automotive suppliers worldwide and the 100 largest German industrial companies. In the independent part business Hella is clearly Number 2 in Europe.


Hella company headquarters in Lippstadt (Germany)

The product line for the independent replacement part market includes more than 25,000 articles in the areas of lighting, electrical, electronics and thermal management. Hella manages one of the largest worldwide trade organisations for automotive parts, accessories, diagnosis and service. The company has its own sales organisations and selected partners in more than 100 countries. Important factors behind Hella's success include a powerful logistics system, the high-quality product line with excellent market coverage and Hella's outstanding service.

With TecCom on the way to the future: the first years

Already in 1999, even before the official founding of TecCom, Hella tests the electronic ordering platform in a pilot project. The main interest lies in the exchange of EDI messages in CLEPA-FIGIEFA format over the standardised TecCom communication path. With this introduction Hella plays a double leadership role in the automotive aftermarket.

“We decided then to introduce TecCom because we hoped to save a lot of money with electronic order processing from a single platform. In addition to that, it was the idea of an industry standard that convinced us. It was clear to us that this was the wave of the future,” says Daniel Boeckler, TecCom Project Manager at Hella, looking back at justifying the decision for the B2B platform. And the success of the cooperation proved him right, “Today we know we made the right decision with TecCom.” When TecCom GmbH is founded at the Automechanika in the year 2000, Hella is one of the shareholders. At the beginning of 2001 Hella has 43 traders connected, making it one of the most active users of the ordering platform on the industry side. In January 4,000 inquiries and orders are sent to Hella electronically.

Daniel Boeckler, TecCom Project Manager at Hella

When in May 2002 industry representatives take part in the meeting of the TecCom User Group Trade for the first time, Hella takes advantage of the opportunity to negotiate its requirements with the traders and present the common requirements to TecCom. Hella participates regularly in the Technical User Group in order to present its requirements and change requests, influencing the further development of the TecCom ordering system.

In fall of 2002 Hella is a TecCom brand partner at the Automechanika, introducing the new Version 2.2 of the ordering software. Hella customers can place live orders from the trade fair and test the system that is already in use in several European countries. In November 2002 more than 17,000 inquiries and orders from traders in Germany, Luxembourg, the UK, Spain and Italy are handled by the platform.

TecOrder, the heart of the Hella e-business strategy

As an additional benefit for the 350 trade customers connected at that time, in 2003 Hella starts to send them order confirmations, dispatch advice notices and invoices through the TecCom network. This way they can follow their orders. In order to improve customer service worldwide, Hella speeds up the rollout rate and plans to convert to Unicode. The goal is to also connect to Russia, China and other Asian countries with the system. In order to ensure maximum availability for electronic orders, Hella introduces the new service TecCheck to continuously watch over the connection to the merchandise management system (MMS) and the network. This reduces any downtime to a minimum.

2004 and 2005 are years of expansion. The ordering solution is introduced in countries from Mexico to Norway to Eastern Europe. The success of the rollout is proven by the high use of the TecCom platform. In September 2005 Hella receives 150,000 orders from 25 countries. In 2007 a milestone in TecCom use is reached: for the first time more than 80 percent of the orders in a country are sent electronically!

As an additional service Hella integrates the TecCom ordering solution into its Aftermarket Club. On Hella's own information and communications platform registered traders can access Hella's electronic product catalogue and store articles in their shopping carts. Then they can directly place availability inquiries or orders using the TecCom platform. Today more than 3,900 of Hella's trading customers are connected to the system. Fifty percent of all orders are placed electronically using TecOrder.

New components for successful process optimisation: TecWarranty, TecCMD and TecInvoice

After the TecOrder solution establishes itself as the market standard for electronic order processing in the independent automotive replacement part market, TecCom responds to numerous requests from suppliers and wholesalers by expanding its solution portfolio. As with TecOrder, the new TecCom solutions have the goal of optimising business processes in the automotive aftermarket. The higher level of automation reduces costs, saves time and simplifies daily work activities.

In fall of 2003 Hella decides in favour of the first solution, TecWarranty, to handle guarantee cases more simply, faster and more comfortably. At the end of 2005 the first meeting of a working group of part manufacturers and traders is held to determine market requirements for a solution to manage article data. Hella is one of the driving forces.

For Daniel Boeckler this opportunity to participate in development is one of the big plus points in the relationship with TecCom. As he puts it, “For Hella it is particularly important that we participate in the development of new services and solutions. Through our work in project groups we can propose ideas and state our requirements. From the very beginning we can ensure that the results will work in practice for our company.”

2008 is the year when the TecCMD solution, developed based on the results of the working group, is used widely by Hella. Using a common platform, trade customers can access the current article, price and logistic data online at any time. They can be constantly updated on changes.

The advantage for Hella: the delay for market introduction of new products and communication of changes in price or article data is shortened significantly. In addition the company profits from lower costs and less time to clear up the questions and wrong orders that resulted from the use of wrong data before TecCMD was introduced.

At Automechanika 2008 Hella presents its own products as well as a wide spectrum of electronic services to help wholesalers save time and money in their daily business. These include TecOrder with its integration in the Aftermarket Club, TecWarranty, TecCMD and also the newest solution, TecInvoice, for optimisation of invoice processing. Already in 2007 Hella had started to automate invoice processes and move them to TecCom. Today the entire invoicing process is handled completely by TecCom – whether the invoice is sent to the customer in paper form or delivered electronically with a signature.

In order to take full advantage of the savings potential, Hella's focus is now on the international rollout of paperless electronic invoicing. Since March 2009 Hella is active together with 13 other suppliers in a common initiative to establish TecInvoice as the market standard in the independent replacement part market. The goal is to act together to realise the huge potential savings from sending and processing electronic invoices.

At the supplier meeting to start the eInvoice Initiative, Rainer Holthaus,
Electronic Marketing Manager (fourth from the left), represents Hella.

With ten years of successful cooperation the question remains what the future will bring. “What we particularly like about TecCom is the short path. We can be heard with our concerns and proposals. For the years ahead we wish for the continuation of our intensive cooperation and conceptual involvement in the development of new and existing solutions for the automotive aftermarket. And in the future we also expect timely applications suited to the market. We want them to be industry-wide solutions giving wholesalers and suppliers a significant advantage in processes and service.” This is how Daniel Boeckler sums up his expectations for the future.

You can find additional information about Hella on their Website www.hella.com. If you have any questions please contact David Winter (david.winter@teccom.eu).