Tom Aliotti is senior vice president and general manager of the Activant Solutions automotive business group. Since joining the company in 2005, Aliotti has overseen the introduction of a broad range of innovative products, including the Activant Eagle for the Aftermarket and Activant Vision distribution management systems, Activant Vista market intelligence solution and Activant LaserCat 3 eCatalog.
Aliotti is a widely respected strategic operations and sales executive with nearly 25 years of experience with leading technology companies, including Oracle Corporation. Immediately prior to joining Activant, he was chief operating officer of Xporta Inc., a provider of global sourcing and supply chain technology solutions for clients such as Ingersoll-Rand, Newell Rubbermaid, Rockwell Automation and Motorola. In this exclusive interview, Aliotti talks about the role that technology, and electronic catalogs in particular, will play in the future of the aftermarket. He also talks about the importance of accurate data and discusses the relationship between e-cat providers, manufacturers, jobbers and distributors.
What factors affect the accuracy and timeliness of manufacturer data that appears in Activant’s electronic catalog?
The ability to deliver data that is both accurate and up-to-date is interrelated. An electronic catalog provider that pushes data to the street without thorough quality assurance isn’t really delivering data that is “up-to-date.” In fact, they’re costing both the distributor and end-user time, money and, potentially, customers by allowing deficient data, which is inaccurate or incomplete, to be used at the parts counter or service desk. In addition, a provider that is delivering manufacturer data to a very small slice of the aftermarket might have a faster publishing cycle, but the value to the manufacturer -- that is interested in having as many outlets as possible moving their parts -- is very limited. By contrast, Activant delivers catalog data to virtually the entire aftermarket, including service chains and independent service dealers.
Several factors determine how quickly we can deliver product data featuring the level of accuracy, completeness and usability our customers expect:
1.) The sheer volume of manufacturer data is growing at a very rapid pace;
2.) The thousands of WDs, jobbers, service chains, tire dealers and independent shops that rely on Activant eCatalog products have an uncommon array of system capabilities and limitations that require extensive work to format the data with the flexibility needed to address all of those requirements; and
3.) The accuracy of the data we receive varies greatly from one manufacturer to the next, but we take the necessary steps to bring all lines to our high quality level; and
4.) Our suite of eCatalog products is not limited to parts information, but also includes a variety of value-added tools such as VIN decoding, labor information, tire fitment, and service intervals databases – all of which greatly benefit the user but add complexity to the publishing process.
In terms of data volume, aftermarket manufacturers have ramped up their new-parts introduction cycles to address increased competition from the OE channel. This, combined with a growing number of manufacturers now contributing to our catalog, has more than doubled the volume of data we have received over the past three years.
