AutoZone Accelerates Time-To-Market

AutoZone is America’s leading retailer and distributor of automotive replacement parts and accessories. With a branded retail presence in every state, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Brazil, they’ve provided excellent parts, prices and customer service for the automotive aftermarket industry for more than 30 years.

Under pressure to better connect with commercial B2B eProcurement customers, reduce the customer onboarding process and reduce reliance on third-party cataloguers, AutoZone chose to partner with TradeCentric.

Introduction

In a competitive market where more commercial customers are adopting eProcurement spend management systems, the pressure is on for suppliers to implement solutions that enhance shopping experiences. However, eProcurement system integrations are time- and resource-consuming projects that require specialized customizations for each client and platform. Despite these complexities, most buying organizations expect suppliers to fully integrate into their eProcurement platform within 30-90 days of a signed contract.

The Challenges

With massive B2C and B2B footprints, AutoZone knows the importance of competitive advantage. They also understand the business challenges that come with implementing new technologies. Faced with in-house IT resource constraints and stringent time-to-market expectations, AutoZone began searching for a sustainable technology that would expand their cXML integration capabilities to offer their full line of automotive aftermarket parts and accessories to every buyer within any B2B eProcurement channel.

“With the help of TradeCentric, AutoZone can offer our full line of automotive aftermarket parts and accessories to customers on any procurement system.”

Max Baer

Program Specialist

Commercial eCommerce

The Solution

AutoZone evaluated several third-party eProcurement integration and data management providers. Key criteria included:

Project and account management skills
B2B integration experience
eProcurement cXML TradeCentric experience
Automotive aftermarket experience
Customization experience

Other considerations were professional service and support, experience with AutoZone’s eCommerce platform, and the ability to accelerate the onboarding process. Following an intensive vetting process, AutoZone chose TradeCentric to expand the capabilities of AutoZone ConnectSM, a program that helps organizations leverage their infrastructure to facilitate and manage eProcurement integrations.

The TradeCentric technology was configured and deployed with the AutoZone ConnectSM program in just 30 days. This one-time integration adapted the TradeCentric Platform to AutoZone’s standard cXML integration, enabling AutoZone to integrate with TradeCentric systems with any cXML or OCI methodology. Not only does this extend support for orders, it also enhances shipping notices and invoicing.

The Results

With the TradeCentric Platform, AutoZone is well-positioned to expand quickly and better connect with their commercial B2B eProcurement customers. AutoZone can integrate with any customer using any procurement system connected to the TradeCentric platform. TradeCentric dramatically reduced the customer onboarding process thanks to the TradeCentric portal. This enabed AutoZone to emulate the B2B TradeCentric experience for customers’ eProcurement systems and complete end-to-end testing before engagement.

AutoZone can now address technical integration challenges and rely on third-party catalogers less. The company achieved its goal of implementing an easy integration method with any eProcurement customer and reducing time-to-market for their customers.

“If we started our partnership with TradeCentric earlier, we would be much further along. The value in TradeCentric’s abilities to understand multiple system and buyer requirements saves AutoZone time and resources.”