With Kapow, Audi delivers real-time web data feeds through their in-dash mobile navigation system.
Customers
Manufacturing
- Home
- Customers
- By Industry
- Manufacturing
Challenge
- With the launch of its new A8 in Germany, Audi wanted to enable real-time access to web-based services – delivering information on restaurants, hotels, recreation areas and more from the car's in-dash mobile navigation system.
- While it was easy for Audi to create business relationships with the information providers, they found it would take too long to obtain a usable real-time data feed from them. And those feeds would need to be transformed to be presented properly on the A8's navigation system.
Solution
- Audi uses Kapow to collect web data feeds directly from information providers' websites.
- Feeds are transformed and presented in real-time through the A8's in-dash mobile navigation system.
Results
- Using Kapow, Audi built 7 feeds in just 1 week.
- Today, Audi collects content directly from the service providers' websites, transforms it and feeds it to the A8's navigation system, giving customers real-time access to valuable travel information.
Automating web intelligence generates 6-figure cost savings for this Global Auto Manufacturer.
Challenge
- Marketing team receives periodic reports with information on sales, leads, ad revenue and other team performance metrics.
- The information in these reports was collected manually from disparate sources.
- Manual web intelligence affected the timeliness and accuracy of information, making the information less valuable to decision makers.
Solution
- They now use Kapow to automatically collect data from third party marketing sites and feed it into a data warehouse for reporting and analysis.
- Kapow is also a central component of their interactive media ROI tool. Without it they would be unable to collect a critical piece of the data they need for performance metrics relating to online advertising and search placements.
Results
- Data is now accurate and up-to-date.
- 6-figure cost savings relating to vendor reporting and pricing functions.
ThyssenKrupp integrated content from multiple intranets, including 700+ internal applications, with no coding required.
Challenge
- With 400 internal intranets and 800 unique brands to manage, their challenge was to bring information together so employees feel they are part of a single company.
- They wanted to streamline access to relevant information.
Solution
- Using Kapow, they combined data from multiple intranets into existing portals.
- They modernized portal layouts with remixed content for targeted user communities.
Results
- 700+ internal applications are mashed up with existing and new portals.
- Significant refresh and improved targeting of portal content, while leveraging existing applications and portal infrastructure.
AGCO, the largest pure play, full-line agricultural equipment manufacturer, uses Kapow to automate web data extraction on hundreds of thousands of parts.
Challenge
- AGCO's parts division needed to pull data from 10 websites, which sell AGCO parts as well as competitors' products.
- Their existing data feed was inflexible. They got infrequent data dumps, and AGCO had to do a lot of manual work on the product description lists.
- Overall not a very good or agile solution, given that they were extracting hundreds of thousands of parts in a very competitive industry.
Solution
- Kapow provides a fully automated data feed solution, including robots to pull from the 10 key websites and a hosted installation of Kapow running on Amazon EC2.
- Kapow also provides ongoing robot maintenance and support.
- An in-house deployment is planned for the next phase.
Results
- Kapow eliminated manual work associated with web data acquisition.
- Competitive information is up-to-date.
Automating web data extraction was key to expanding business for PPG Industries, the world's leading provider of coatings and specialty products and services.
Challenge
- An insurance company has outsourced its claims department to PPG. PPG handles claims requests from car owners through a call center application.
- PPG needs access to each insurance policy data, which typically resides on a mainframe.
- They are now encountering clients whose data resides in web applications. They need to automate web data extraction and integrate the data with internal systems to replace time consuming manual data processing by call center staff.
Solution
- Kapow robots perform web data extraction automatically.
- Robots are wrapped in web services, which make them easy to integrate into the existing solution.
Results
- Automating web data extraction and integration will result in an estimated 50,000 additional cases from the insurance company.
Audi delivers on their vision for self-service IT with codeless portal generation.
Challenge
- Audi wanted to build a global group intranet (including Volkswagen AG), but there were many integration problems to solve.
- Data was controlled at the department level.
- They didn't want to spend the time and money associated with traditional integration methods.
Solution
- With Kapow, they implemented their vision for self-service IT through codeless portal generation.
- The global group intranet provides access to enterprise-wide information, is optimized for each group, and provides mobile access to intranet and sales applications.
Results
- Significant time and cost savings over traditional integration methods.
- Automated web intelligence for Transport & Logistics optimization.
- “Using Kapow, 1 developer was able to build the new application in just 4 days for a fraction of the cost and using data from nearly 100 sources.” Anton Kramm, IT Management Team, Audi
Before automating web intelligence, 5 employees were manually copying and pasting competitive pricing information into spreadsheets. Now they can focus on putting the real-time data to work.
Challenge
- Automate web data acquisition for greater market awareness and competitive intelligence.
- Acquire the intelligence needed to make informed decisions for optimizing product pricing.
- Free employees from manually searching, copying and pasting data from the web.
Solution
- Kapow automates the extraction and aggregation of nearly 15 million records/year of market and competitive intelligence.
- No coding is required. Business analysts built the Kapow robots that automate web data extraction.
Results
- With Kapow, data acquisition is comprehensive and scalable. They aren't limited to data staff can manually extract.
- They've eliminated errors associated with manual data entry.
- Data is up-to-date.
The global logistics leader saves recoding time and costs by using Kapow to API-enable 15 web applications.
Challenge
- DHL needed to API-enable and integrate 15 distributed web applications for Deutsche Post World Network and DHL into an Oracle WebLogic portal without re-coding any of the existing applications.
- With more than 2 million registered users, they needed a highly scalable solution that could handle 100,000 requests per hour with 300 concurrent sessions.
- Traditional SOA methods would have required implementing a service layer directly in the current applications with an expensive long term consulting engagement.
Solution
- Kapow enabled them to integrate 15 distributed web applications into the Oracle WebLogic portal without re-coding.
- The solution meets current requirements (100,000 requests per hour/300 concurrent sessions) and is scalable to meet future demand.
Results
- Applications were API-enabled at a fraction of the cost and in record time compared to traditional methods.
- By leveraging the Kapow Katalyst™ platform, which has a stateless server that scales linearly with the number of CPUs available, they can meet current requirements and quickly scale the solution to meet growing demand.
With Kapow, content migration to a new CMS required 20X less effort than the original plan.
Challenge
- Following acquisition of a U.S.-based shipping company, the company wanted to integrate multiple internal self-service portals and migrate content from an old CMS system (Gauss) to their new system (BEA WCMS, now Oracle).
- This would require migrating and consolidating web content from multiple sources.
Solution
- With Kapow, they were able to automate content migration for quick completion.
- Eliminated manual errors through front-end automation.
Results
- 35,000 web pages were migrated in 1 month.
- Migration entailed 20X less effort than the original plan and a fraction of the time projected by other vendors.
Pitt Ohio, a premier Mid-Atlantic LTL (Less Than Truckload) carrier, uses Kapow to automate web data extraction and integration for supply chain, customer service, credit and collection process automation.
Challenge
- Integrating with supply chain and customer applications was difficult.
- Typically, this was accomplished with repetitive manual tasks that consumed valuable resources.
- Data collected in this manner resulted in numerous keystroke errors and was hours or days old, limiting relevance.
Solution
- Kapow has automated web intelligence and integration in various parts of the business, ranging from supply chain and customer service to credit and collections.
Results
- Eliminating manual data extraction, frees resources to work on more value-added projects.
- Better data quality and timeliness.
- Access to more data sources.
Lenovo, the fastest growing of the top 5 PC manufacturers, chose Kapow for fast and effortless content migration to Interwoven.
Challenge
- Lenovo needed to migrate legacy content from a variety of sources and formats to Interwoven.
- This required access to content in Quest DB, Domino DB, static HTML and custom .NET applications.
Solution
- Using Kapow, they were able to migrate content automatically.
- Content migration required no coding and no content freeze.
Results
- Dramatic time and cost savings compared to scripting or manual approach.
- Zero data conversion errors.
Lexmark, a leading provider of printing and imaging products, migrated content from 50+ country sites to Vignette.
Challenge
- Lexmark needed to migrate their entire set of websites (50+ country sites) from Vignette into Documentum.
- Traditional content migration methods were too costly and time consuming.
Solution
- Using Kapow, they were able to migrate content automatically.
- Content migration required no coding and no content freeze.
Results
- Dramatic time and cost savings compared to scripting or manual approach.
- Zero data conversion errors.
With Kapow, MTU unified portals on a common infrastructure without recoding.
Challenge
- MTU is Germany's leading producer of aircraft engines and components for the military and commercial market.
- They needed to integrate applications into the company's intranet.
- Competing solutions were not able to meet their requirements.
Solution
- They used Kapow to integrate 10 applications via clipping into their portal environment.
- Data was integrated into the portal environment without coding or data conversion errors.
Results
- Significant savings in development time and effort.
- Extends the value of existing assets without costly rework.
JB Hunt, one of the largest transportation logistics companies in North America, keeps trucks running at capacity by harnessing real-time web data with Kapow.
Challenge
- Reduce freight costs by filling all trucks on all routes to capacity.
- To achieve this goal, they needed real-time access to relevant information from diverse sources, including logistic and payment information, but access to secure/external databases was seemingly impossible.
Solution
- Kapow web intelligence robots enable them to monitor public and partner websites for freight bid information in real time.
- They can integrate data from hundreds of partners and companies within a complex value chain.
- Data flows are integrated using web application interfaces. This eliminates the need for manual copy and paste between systems.
- The solution provides mobile access to application data, crucial for a transportation company.
Results
- More trucks are running with full loads, reducing freight cost per mile.
- Automating data integration has reduced cost (and errors) associated with manual data entry.
- Real-time visibility into partner logistics drives increased margin, revenue and customer satisfaction.
- CFO has a real-time view of cash flow.
A leading mobile phone manufacturer uses Kapow to monitor blogs, forums and social media sites for consumer commentary on their mobile phones.
Challenge
- They needed a more effective way to extract business intelligence on mobile phones and mobile phone customers from comments found on blogs, forums and industry websites.
- They were using a home-grown solution that was offsetting benefits with excessive maintenance and troubleshooting costs.
- They needed a robust platform for web data extraction and integration that could handle JavaScript, Ajax and other challenging source content.
Solution
- Kapow robots automated web intelligence, with no coding required.
- Collected web data is integrated directly to an internal database.
Results
- More comprehensive and accurate data for making product decisions.
- Easier maintenance and development with the Kapow platform compared to their previous home-grown solution.
- More robust technology for extracting data in JavaScript, Ajax and other difficult web content sources.