In the driving seat

Sports car manufacturer Aston Martin is synonymous with luxury, exclusivity and, of course, fictional British spy James Bond. To discover what’s going on under the business bonnet of this luxury marque in 2010, we hear from Bradley Yorke-Biggs, Director of Strategy and IT.

“We shouldn't be concerned with managing it and delivering the constant technology roadmap to keep it relevant to our business needs - we make fast beautiful cars remember, we are not a software house!”
-Bradley Yorke-Biggs

With the dark clouds of recession lingering overhead for the past couple of years, the producers of high-end luxury goods were forced to brace themselves for a bumpy ride. It has been a similar predicament for the manufacturers of high-spec sports cars costing the same price of a two-bedroom apartment. It's not that the wealthy don't have the money anymore, but rather that in these times of austerity and belt-tightening, guilt sometimes comes into the equation when deciding to stroll into an Aston Martin showroom and slap down a lumpy deposit on a €150,000 model, says Yorke-Biggs. "If you're the director of a company or a self-made man, then during a period of recession you're having to cut costs, lay people off and make some hard decisions. Therefore,  there may be some concern that to buy an Aston Martin and drive it into the car park at the front of the office may be perceived as being insensitive."

 

Before the economic maelstrom Aston Martin sold around 7000 cars a year; since 2007 sales have dipped to under 6000. "Last year sales was slightly less because we saw hesitation in the luxury market." Things are picking up again now though, he explains. "Confidence will gradually return - People's personal wealth is still there, and it will be perceived as more acceptable for people to go and start spending money on luxury items such as our cars again."

 

Yorke-Biggs describes Aston Martin, which has a heritage stretching back to 1913, as the "smallest global car company in the world". Currently around 90 percent of sales are equally split three ways between the UK, Europe and the US. The rest of the world (RoW) accounts for the remaining 10 percent of annual sales, however the company is pushing to build the RoW business up to around a quarter of global business. "We have been opening new dealerships in places like China andRussia , while a growing market for us is certainly the Middle East - in fact this is becoming fairly significant for us." Business in emerging markets will swell further with the Rapide model, which has just gone into production. It's a break from tradition for Aston Martin, being a four-door sports car as opposed to a two-door. "We're building a four-door, four-seat, sports car which makes us just a little more accessible to a few more customers - people who might not have considered an Aston Martin before," says Yorke-Biggs.

 

 

Make a connection

 

With a concerted effort to globalise the appeal of the cars in full swing, Yorke-Biggs, who has been at the company for seven years, proudly suggests Aston Martin isn't an in-your-face name in the world of motoring. "We're not a brash brand; we're quite an understated brand." The company doesn't pigeon hole its customers either; although it goes without saying they have the fair chunk of disposable income kicking about and a love affair with lightning-quick cars. "We try not to categorise what our customer exactly looks like, although it is normally somebody who wants to reward themselves for success in whatever sphere, but in an understated way. Although some famous individuals drive our cars, there are also many people who are perhaps less prominent but  who want to reward themselves for being successful in life with an Aston Martin."

For a luxury brand like Aston Martin that affinity and relationship with the customer is paramount. A new Aston Martin owner is not just taking delivery of a desirable sports car; they are buying into an exclusive club, which means maximising customer brand loyalty. The brand wants an Aston Martin driver's next car to be an Aston Martin, which is partly why the carmaker is overhauling its CRM strategy. "One of our most important considerations is how we talk to, communicate and listen to customers so we wanted to look at developing a revised CRM strategy. One of our mantras is that we want a one-to-one relationship with every customer." With customer numbers swelling, this is easier said than done. "When we had 10,000 customers globally that was more easily achievable through traditional methods. However, we now have approximately 50,000 customers worldwide because we are very much a global company so it has been more challenging to give the customer a one-to-one relationship with us as a brand." To achieve this Yorke-Biggs has to ensure the business has a clear set of business processes in place and the right supporting tool sets. It's also about re-engineering the website for customers and raising the brand's profile through social media.

 

As well as leading the development of the company's strategy and product planning, Yorke-Biggs is also responsible for the IT infrastructure, systems and services - a decision was taken more than a year ago to combine the strategy and IT role.

"It became relatively clear that we needed to put IT at the centre of the business rather than as it has been historically perceived; as a support function for the business that just looks after email, phones and such utilitarian things. We also needed to do this in order to drive a more fundamental change to our core business processes and supporting tool sets,to take us into the next generation of Aston Martins -. 

 

When enterprise-wide IT fell under Yorke-Biggs' remit one of his main challenges was to simplify the carmaker's complicated IT estate. When Aston Martin was bought by Ford in 1987 Aston Martin adopted a slice of their business processes and supporting toolsets. So after Ford offloaded the luxury marque in 2007, IT boffins had to migrate to new technologies in order to keep the business running smoothly. "So our IT estate is extremely complex and probably not as you would design it if you were given a fresh sheet of paper," Yorke-Biggs explains. "We also want to simplify it because IT is not really core to what we do - we make fast, beautiful cars." He continues: "In order to be truly successful and to get maximum business efficiency I believe we need to take that complexity out of the equation and rationalise the architectures and platforms we use. We should only have uniqueness, from an IT perspective, where it truly adds business value but we have the balance a little bit wrong at the moment."

 

As part of this simplification process, Yorke-Biggs, whose background is in mechanical engineering, has been orchestrating the roll out of Windows 7 across the company's desktop environment as well as Microsoft's System Centre 'suite' Most of the servers are also being virtualised and a new ERP system is being implemented due to the previous one being "dated and fragile". Likewise, the wheels are being set in motion for phase II of a PLM strategy along with the aforementioned CRM overhaul. "We are biting off quite a lot at once so trying to customise all these applications will mean we will drown. We want to take those bits that are vanilla and only change the things that truly add value to our customers, or to our business" he reveals. "These are fairly big steps but taking out the complexity will underpin where we want to go in the future."

 

He is also looking to simplify the company's complicated data centre, which houses some old Ford servers and services, and patches used to fix problems after Aston Martin was sold. Yorke-Biggs says he can see a future where Aston Martin  does not actually need a data centre. " Although in 2007 it was the right decisionfor us to invest UK£1 million in a brand new data centre as we separated from the Ford enterprise, I don't want a data centre. We shouldn't be concerned with managing it and delivering the constant technology roadmap to keep it relevant to our business needs - we make fast beautiful cars remember, we are not a software house!  " At this stage he is investigating the use of smart solutions to provide a Lean service while the company is aiming for around 90 percent of all applications purchased 'off the shelf'. "The trick will be to understand what the 10 percent are and how they really will add value to the business, not just for IT but for the enterprise as a whole."

 

And when it comes to ensuring IT delivers tangible benefits the business, Yorke-Biggs believes his non-IT background allows him to see the bigger picture. "I'm a businessperson and a business strategist, so I will naturally always put the business requirements ahead of IT requirements; there is no point in pushing out technology for the sake of it! I have come from the other route into IT - I have a very good understanding of the business at a very broad level, having had a number of different positions. I have had to learn IT but not every 1 and every 0 of how it works. I have a good team around me that understand how the detailed infrastructure and applications work and how they relate to each other.  What they need from me is the vision and ability to develop the strategies to make the business better through engaging IT." And just in case you were wondering, the job doesn't come with an Aston Martin as a company car. "I have a young family, so no, I don't drive an Aston Martin full-time; although the launch of the Rapide does have my wife coming around to the idea!. We dohave the pleasure of driving them from time to time, which is fantastic and helps keep me very motivated for the job."

 

 

 

 

Aston Martin: a brief history

 

1913

Lionel Martin and Robert Bamford establish the business. The Aston Martin name is born following success at the Aston Hill Climb

 

1922

Aston Martin makes first appearance overseas at the French Grand Prix

 

1937

140 cars are built - the highest pre-war production figure

 

1947

David Martin buys and the company and Lagonda

 

 

1964

The gadget-laden DB5 features in James Bond film Goldfinger. It went into production the previous year

 

1981

Victor Gauntlett and pace Petroleum acquire the carmaker

 

1987

Motoring giant Ford purchase a 75-percent shareholding in Aston Martin

 

1993

V8 Vantage goes into production. The following year, Ford takes 100 percent control

 

2003

Aston Martin's first purpose-built manufacturing facility opens

 

2006

The 30,000^th Aston Martin rolls off the production line. The new DBS seen for the first time in the James Bond blockbuster Casino Royale

 

2007

The company is sold to a consortium of two investment houses, Investment Dar and Adeem Investment led by David Richards

 

2009

DBS Volante & V12 Vantage launched at Geneva Motor Show