Toyota, EDS Partner to Provide Electronic Parts Catalog Systems
29 September 1998
Toyota, EDS Partner to Provide Electronic Parts Catalog Systems to Dealers
TROY, Mich., Sept. 28 -- Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc., and
EDS have announced an agreement making EDS an approved vendor to provide
electronic parts catalog (EPC) systems to Toyota and Lexus dealers. EDS will
provide the service through its new, state-of-the-art EPC system, Parts
Imager2. The development is significant because it is EDS' first vendor
relationship in the EPC arena that is not tied to General Motors, and is part
of Toyota's strategy to exit from the EPC business in order to focus more
fully on its core business operations.
"We're extremely pleased about our new relationship with Toyota," said
Andre Letourneau, EDS Automotive Retail Group account manager. "We believe
this agreement shows the automotive industry that we're a major player in the
electronic parts catalog business."
Barbara Cooper, Toyota's Chief Information Officer, stated that the
agreement also represents a positive move for Toyota because it will allow the
company to devote more energy to developing new communication systems between
Toyota and its dealers. "We want to intensify our focus on our core business,
and our agreement with EDS for the development of Toyota and Lexus EPC systems
helps us do just that," Cooper said. "Throughout our negotiations with EDS,
we were pleased to discover that their plans for the future direction of their
EPC product matched our strategy. We're confident that they have the
capabilities our dealers need -- technology, reliability, and good customer
service."
The electronic automotive parts catalog business is currently a $150
million per year industry, and it is continuing to grow rapidly. A product of
the digital information revolution, the catalogs -- referenced by automotive
dealership personnel when ordering new or replacement parts for mechanics and
customers -- used to be stored on paper in large, hardbound binders. The
evolution of CD-ROM and other electronic information storage technologies,
however, quickly rendered such paper-based storage models obsolete. Today,
competition among information technology companies for the opportunity to
create, maintain, and continuously update the large electronic parts databases
at automotive dealerships is fierce.
Under terms of the agreement between EDS and Toyota, Toyota will provide
parts data to EDS to be used in the development of an electronic parts
catalog. EDS expects to have incorporated all of the content into its Parts
Imager2 system by this October. The Windows 95-based Parts Imager2 EPC system
that EDS is developing for Toyota will be for use solely in Toyota and Lexus
dealerships in the United States, excluding Hawaii.
"One of the reasons we're very excited about our agreement with Toyota is
because it gives us another chance to demonstrate the advantages our EDS Parts
Imager2 system has over its competition," Letourneau said. "It's an open
platform system that allows the dealership to load other Windows applications
on the same hardware, and that's a feature that nobody else offers now. We
believe that had a lot to do with Toyota's decision to choose us, because
they're very concerned about giving their dealers viable choices over the long
haul."
Established in 1957, Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A. Inc., is the U.S. sales
and marketing arm of Toyota Motor Corporation, with responsibility for the
distribution and sale of Toyota and Lexus vehicles in the United States. With
more than 1.2 million vehicles sold in 1997 and more than 60 percent of those
built in North America, Toyota is the fourth-largest car company in the United
States.
EDS, the official information technology services provider for World Cup
1998, is a leader in the global information services industry. The company's
more than 110,000 employees specialize in applying a range of ideas and
technologies to help business and government clients improve their economics,
products, services and relationships. EDS, which serves clients in 45
countries, reported revenues of $15.2 billion in 1997. The company's stock is
traded on the New York Stock Exchange and the London Stock
Exchange. Visit EDS via the Internet at http://www.eds.com.