SAP Announces Warranty Processing Solution

SAP AG has announced that it is offering a solution for the automobile industry designed to cope with an increasing influx of warranty claims.
Warranty Claims Processing with mySAP Automotive is designed to help process large volumes of warranty claims, while reducing processing costs and increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Warranty Claims Processing with mySAP Automotive meets the specific needs of the automotive industry by linking complex business processes into a logical flow. The solution flexibly integrates the warranty process into vehicle sales, financials, controlling, spare parts management, and engineering to create efficient processes, thereby keeping companies competitive and creating an environment in which automotive companies can use financial programs, leasing options, maintenance packages, insurance programs, and extended warranties to decrease turnover and encourage their customers to remain loyal.
Longer warranty periods and greater range of parts that carry warranties have led to a considerable increase in warranty claims, meaning that the conditions for a warranty claim are becoming more extensive and complex. Mileage or age-dependent restrictions, authorization processes, and extensive review mechanisms make this a work-intensive process. Most systems currently in use for automatic warranty claims processing are no longer capable of supporting these processes satisfactorily and are lacking front- and back-office integration.
“Processing warranty claims is a complex business that involves different business partners,” said Kerstin Geiger, head of the Industry Business Unit Automotive, SAP AG. “Customer satisfaction and retention heavily depends on the professional way of resolving these claims as fast as possible in an automated manner, while keeping process costs low.”
In close collaboration with its customers from the automotive industry, SAP has developed warranty processing that addresses these industry challenges. Several pilot customers throughout the world are currently implementing Warranty Claims Processing with mySAP Automotive, including OEMs, suppliers, and importers.
The result of these efforts have created a number of substantive benefits for customers, including portal based integration, which increases speed and cuts processing costs. The solution makes use of rules to automatically check and process claims, reducing administration costs while intelligent control of processes reduces the amount of manual processing. With warranty processing, information can later be used to track the processing of the claim in detail and analyze damage symptoms. The resulting evaluations can be used to introduce preventive measures for improving the product. Communication between applicants and reimbursers takes place through specially developed Web scenarios based on technology from mySAP Enterprise Portal or standardized communication interfaces in XML or EDI format.
Processors can also post warranty claims through a user-friendly interface if automatic processing is not available. Warranty processing also covers special cases such as authorized goodwill claims, recall campaigns, return part handling, and complex business warranty cases in which there is more than one reimburser for the items claimed under warranty.