Brisa: Building new, customer-centric models in a streamlined e-commerce system
Explore Brisa’s journey with SAP
Tire company Brisa Bridgestone Sabancı Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş. (Brisa) is an innovator, having set up the world’s first mobile truck maintenance service. With the SAP Commerce Cloud solution, it has developed even smarter ways to serve B2B and B2C customers and outpace its peers.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Automotive | Istanbul, Turkey | >3,100 employees |
servers reduced to one.
Web sites supported by one e-commerce solution.
increase in the number of customer logins.
IT Director, Brisa Bridgestone Sabancı Lastik Sanayi ve Ticaret A.Ş.
Centralizing systems to build a nimble e-commerce operation
A joint venture company owned by Sabancı Holding and Bridgestone Corporation, Brisa exports tires to more than 88 countries. The first Turkish winner of the European Quality Grand Award for its business excellence, it leads the domestic market with brands such as Lassa, Bridgestone, and Dayton. The company works with more than 390 dealers and thousands of subdealers to service the Turkish replacement market. It also operates more than 6,000 distribution sales points for international markets in 88 countries.
Such a diverse selection of B2B and B2C customers requires a well-oiled e-commerce machine. However, disparate, aging on-premise systems spread across 16 servers made meeting these customers’ needs a challenge. The buying experience was cumbersome, with offerings often listed merely in spreadsheets and no ability to browse product images. Twenty-seven separate Web domains created an inconsistent branding experience and a large administrative workload for internal teams. And dealers and distributors did not have user-friendly access to the data and reports they needed.
In addition, e-commerce systems were heavily customized, further increasing complexity and the maintenance burden. IT teams had to deal with around 300 development requests a year, mainly related to poor performance and other problems. As İlker Şahin, Brisa’s IT director, explains, “This workload was becoming huge and too complex to manage.”
Performance issues also affected Brisa’s ability to handle peak sales volumes. For example, the company runs promotional campaigns for the tire sector at key times, such as the winter and summer tire campaigns. But current systems could not deal with the rush periods. Şahin adds, “These campaigns were previously tough because there were lots of performance problems. That was another reason we needed to move to the cloud.”
Brisa knew overhauling the existing platform was not the answer. It needed to reinvent its e-commerce offering to give customers the functionality, performance, and experience they expect.
Adopting best practices with a proven, innovative solution
Brisa was familiar with SAP solutions, having already adopted the SAP ERP application and SAP HANA database. It knew it could integrate the SAP Commerce Cloud solution smoothly with this software and with the multiple Web sites serving its different brands.
User experience was a key deciding factor. SAP Commerce Cloud would enable a consistent, consumer-grade experience for diverse customers, from dealers to consumers. It would also radically reduce complexity and maintenance effort, replacing numerous small systems, such as the content management tool, with one solution that could meet its e-commerce needs.
Another advantage of SAP Commerce Cloud was the ability to adapt best practices and standard processes and eliminate the high levels of customization that had made the IT teams’ job so difficult in the past.
Having opted for SAP Commerce Cloud, Brisa ran workshops with dealers and distributors before designing its new e-commerce system to ensure their needs were met, a step that contributed greatly to the success of the project.
Shaking up the industry with a consumer-grade B2B experience
Having unified its domestic B2B, international B2B, and B2C businesses on SAP Commerce Cloud, Brisa has dramatically reduced complexity and costs. It has consolidated 16 servers into one and no longer needs a separate data center. Turnover-based licensing fees provide another cost advantage.
Integrating the solution with Brisa’s Web sites means teams must upload product content only once for different brands, reducing workload and safeguarding brand consistency. Şahin says, “Each type of customer sees a different offering – but for us, there is just one platform to manage.”
A simplified landscape and improved performance mean IT teams can focus on value-added tasks and new requirements that meet customers’ needs instead of troubleshooting problems. And scalability in the cloud means performance during busy promotional campaigns is no longer an issue.
On the B2B side, dealers and distributors receive a consumer-grade experience that lets them intuitively search for, filter, and group products. As SAP Commerce Cloud is mobile enabled, they have 24x7 access to Brisa’s offerings. Dealers also have a user-friendly dashboard presenting the information they need – from order volumes and stock levels to financials, invoices, and sales targets – in one place.
All of this helps Brisa differentiate itself from other industry players. According to Şahin, “Most other companies usually don’t focus on the B2B experience. We are proud of our unique B2B experience, which gives us a competitive edge.” The close collaboration with customers in designing the new platform enabled high engagement, with Şahin noting, “We developed the system with dealer and distributor needs in mind. They have a great sense of ownership, and it feels like their system as well.”
B2C users, meanwhile, benefit from a standardized, improved experience too, and SAP Commerce Cloud lets Brisa serve them in innovative new ways. For example, when a consumer orders tires on Brisa’s site, they can choose to send the tire to a dealer for service there or opt for on-site service at home or work. Similar to the click-and-collect model used by retailers, this proved particularly useful during the COVID-19 pandemic.
And, of course, SAP Commerce Cloud provides not only customers but also Brisa itself with user-friendly analytics and in-depth data on customer experience, customer preferences, and campaign performance, helping it constantly improve its offerings.
Evolving continuously to deliver for customers
SAP Commerce Cloud has opened up a range of exciting possibilities for Brisa. For instance, the company is now exploring launching a new B2B marketplace to further differentiate itself from competitors. As it can now enter new markets nimbly and cost-efficiently.
Fleet customers are an important channel for Brisa, especially with car sharing on the increase after the easing of the COVID-19 pandemic. One new approach involves integrating fleets with Brisa’s B2B systems so the company can offer on-road assistance to fleet customers who experience problems with their car.
Already tightly connected with its main dealers, Brisa intends to use its new e-commerce platform to deepen relationships with subdealers by offering them a customized view of the B2B site.
And on the analytics side, Brisa wants to mine the integrated enterprise-wide data at its fingertips to meet – and surpass – customer expectations while continuing to tread new paths in the tire sector.