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Client Success Story · Automotive
Awarded on tender and rolled out to the entire Volkswagen retailer network in Ireland — 34 locations nationwide, with large portrait screens, freestanding tablets and iPads installed across every one of them.
A full retailer network, covered end to end, in a category that was new ground for the brand at the time.
The rollout
What was covered, and how much of it.
Locations nationwide
Device formats
Of the retailer network
Supplier, end to end
“After an initial tender process, Digital Screen Displays were awarded the contract to roll out our retailer network digital screen project, including large portrait screens, free-standing tablets and iPads to our entire network in Ireland (34 locations nationwide). From the get go, DSD have shown a great responsiveness, flexibility and most importantly a desire to problem solve and find resolutions in this relatively new area for us. The roll-out and installation of the project was seamless and technical support has been quick and efficient as infrequently as it has been required.”
Mark McGrath, Head of Marketing — Volkswagen Passenger CarsThe brief
This is the thing that makes franchise deployments different from every other kind of estate.
When a brand owns its sites, a rollout is a single decision applied thirty-four times. A retailer network is not that. Each location is an independent business with its own showroom, its own layout, its own opinion about what goes where, and its own trading day that cannot be interrupted because head office has a schedule.
So the job is only half technical. The other half is turning up at thirty-four premises, working out what fits in that particular showroom, agreeing it with the people who work there, and installing it without closing the floor — while making sure a customer walking into any of the thirty-four sees the same brand presented the same way.
It was also, in Volkswagen’s own words, a relatively new area for them at the time. That changes what a supplier is being asked for. Not a quotation against a specification somebody else wrote, but the judgement to say what should be installed, where, and why.
What went in
A car showroom has a sequence to it — noticing, browsing, then sitting down with somebody. Each format serves a different point in that.
Full-height brand and model content on the showroom floor, doing the work of a poster site that can change between campaigns without a print run.
Placed beside the cars, where a customer is already looking and has a question. Specification and detail at arm's reach rather than at a desk.
In the hands of the sales team, so the conversation does not have to move to wherever the computer happens to be.
Awarded on tender
The contract came through a formal tender process rather than a conversation.
A tender is a useful thing to have won, because it means the decision was made on documented capability — delivery method, support commitments, references and price — and not on who happened to be in the room.
It also sets the standard for everything that follows. What is promised in a tender response is what the client holds you to across thirty-four installations and the years of support afterwards, which is a considerably healthier way to start a relationship than a handshake.
The detail
What a network rollout actually consists of, beyond the hardware list.
Thirty-four different showrooms. Each one measured on its own terms — where the portrait screens land, where the tablets sit, and what the building will carry.
One brand, thirty-four floors. Positioning and content held to the same standard everywhere, so the network reads as one thing rather than as thirty-four local decisions.
Showrooms stayed open. Retailers are independent businesses with their own sales targets; the rollout worked around them rather than the other way round.
Screens, tablets and iPads together. Fixed displays and handheld devices have very different deployment and support needs, handled as one piece of work.
Quick and efficient, and rarely needed. The client's own assessment, which is the only version of that claim worth printing.
New ground for the brand. Where there was no established answer, the job was to find one rather than to wait for a specification.
On site
Photographs from Volkswagen retailer showrooms.
The result
The rollout and installation were delivered across the full network, and the support behind it has been needed infrequently.
That last part is the quiet measure of a network rollout. Thirty-four sites generating very little support traffic means the hardware was specified correctly, the installations were done properly and the people using the system understood it.
It is a harder thing to achieve than a fast response time, and considerably more valuable to the business paying for it.
More like this
Same discipline, different floors.
Franchise and dealer networks are a different job to an owned estate, and the difference is not technical. Tell us how many sites and how independent they are, and we will tell you how we would approach it.