General Motors Retail Operating System Upgrade

Latitude Learning Platform Case Study The Extended Enterprise Delivered Retail Operating System Upgrade General Motors General Motors (GM) Corporation, the world’s largest automaker, has been the global automotive sales leader for 75 years. GM works with more than 14,222 dealers throughout the United States. GM Retail Operating System (ROS) is a dynamic set of “best practices” available online. These best practices are based on the most successful retail methods and procedures in the automotive industry. 1 Business Need The content of GM ROS had remained static since its inception in 1998. While the content was meant to remain constant to support the best practices of a GM retail environment, updates to reflect changes to the market and methods of doing business were expected. GM needed to to update the content, “look and feel,” and add functionality to the GM Retail Operating System (ROS). Before Latitude began upgrading the site, the existing ROS modules were given an instructional design (ID) treatment. This included a high-level ID review by a senior instructional designer and full ID review by staff. The team reviewed the site for content and site flow and documented recommended changes. Based on the recommendations, Latitude upgraded ROS features and functionality, including editable workflow charts, search engine enhancements, site lookand-feel, and streamlined supplier forms. Solution The content of ROS had been created from written binders and transposed into an electronic format for use on the Web. During the transfer, little thought was given to instructional design. As a result, natural linkages between various styles of learning were missing from the site’s content. Editable Flow Charts Each dealership has established process flows. The dealer either establishes these process flows or follows de facto processes, not fully understood by the Latitude Consulting Group 888-577-2797 www.latitudecg.com LATITUDE CONSULTING GROUP CASE STUDY Retail Operating System Upgrade dealer. To improve the customer experience, GM wanted dealers to establish consistent processes for all customer interface points. Latitude created downloadable process flow templates of GM best practice processes. These process flow charts could be customized by dealers to reflect their local environment. Link to Forms Suppliers Dealers could download suggested supplier forms from ROS. As processes changed, forms changed and corporate staff had to place the updated forms on the site. Latitude linked ROS directly to the supplier forms on external servers. Hosting and Maintenance Latitude dedicated a fixed number of hours per month to maintain ROS. Hosting and maintenance included quality assurance, content updates (when necessary), security, site backup, and a service level guarantee. Search Engine Improvement Latitude updated the search technology of the site to allow searches that were more intuitive to the user. Updated Site Look and Feel The site look and feel—the graphical user interface (GUI)—of ROS had not changed since the initial creation of the site. While functional, it did not reflect usability best practices. One of the biggest stumbling blocks to ROS usability was the site navigation. Users had to navigate through a subject to reach suggested recommendations. Latitude’s new design allowed the user to move laterally from one subject to another to reach suggested recommendations. In addition, to comply with GM DealerWorld standards Latitude revised the look-and-feel of the site. Results • Downloadable, customizable templates helped dealers improve customer service by leveraging GM best practices and establishing processes that worked in their environment • Updates to the site’s look-and-feel and search engine helped dealers find the information they needed, quickly and easily 2 Latitude upgraded the GM Retail Operating System with more intuitive site navigation and added customizable best practices templates. The upgrade provided dealers with an improved resource that better helped them deliver consistent customer service. FOR MORE INFORMATION For more information, contact Latitude insights at (888) 577-2797 or by e-mail to insights@latitudecg.com.