Helping a €250M company embrace no-code

For SAG, Switzerland’s largest spare automotive parts distributor, spotting opportunities in the automotive service industry is easy. The challenge, however, is capitalizing on said opportunities. When Giacomo and Francesco from SAG came to us with the idea for Guido, they knew the execution would be difficult.

Fortunately, they came to the right place. At Tinkso, we build bespoke digital products, helping enterprises like SAG develop spinoff apps in record time.

After creating the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) for Guido, Giacomo and Francesco agreed that it was a shining model for future no-code projects, both for SAG and many enterprise companies like it. Keep reading to see how we put it all together.

The Search For Agility

Typically, if SAG were to handle Guido in-house, Giacomo and Francesco would need to negotiate with several stakeholders. In the interest of internal efficiency, SAG designated Guido as a separate company. Think of it as a startup with initial VC funding and connections from SAG.

Agility is a prerequisite for success in the startup world. As Giacomo told us: "Sometimes when you grow in volume, that's not always a positive thing". Francesco and Giacomo did not want to spend several months and hundreds of thousands of dollars on an MVP. Thus, instead of hiring coders to execute the project, they turned to no-code to get the app out quickly and validate their ideas. After all, they needed to prove to SAG that Guido was viable.

Since Guido is a 3-sided marketplace, we had to solve a 3-sided problem. The automotive service industry is traditionally fragmented. Giacomo and Francesco tasked us with balancing the needs of fleet managers, service managers, and garages in a single tool.

Having already run a few pilot programs, they already knew what they needed to solve each side of the problem. For instance, one of the main issues was that garages are slow to uptake new technologies and don’t react well to operational disruptions.

As a result of being a spinoff of SAG, Guido can source spare parts more efficiently than garages. Guido expedites operations for garages by reducing their number of distributors to one.

Beyond that, Guido needed to:

Connect fleet managers with garages for vehicle services.

Offer tools for fleet managers to oversee all vehicles within their fleet efficiently.

Facilitate the management of service tickets and quotes for each vehicle, streamlining the process of obtaining and comparing service options.

Allow garages to invoice the platform directly for services rendered while enabling fleet managers to pay invoices.

Building A Three-Sided Solution

So, with Guido’s requirements in mind, we took on the challenge of creating an MVP using Bubble.

By nature, this platform had information coming in from all angles.

A substantial portion of our challenge was integrating SAG’s spare parts distribution functionality using an API. Furthermore, fleet managers would be empowered to bulk upload their vehicles from an internal database, even allowing them to enrich each record with additional data.

To fulfill the requested invoicing functionality, we integrated Bexio. Bexio is a platform that allows SMEs to streamline their accounting and administrative processes. This, along with our ticket management and quote management systems, is what made Guido a comprehensive solution for all three parties involved.

Here’s a look at a typical workflow using Guido:

The vehicle manager opens Guido and requests an intervention from a nearby garage. Given that SAG already owns a chain of garages, Guido already had a few of them on board from the beginning.

Upon notification from the vehicle manager, garages then carry out the required maintenance and repair. Through an API connection with SAG’s existing parts database, we enabled the technicians to seamlessly pick the parts they required for the intervention.

Once the relevant vehicle manager approves, the garage installs the parts. The garage receives payment from the platform for their work as well as an invoice. That’s where the Bexio integration came in handy.

Later, fleet managers can return to Guido to view the various services rendered, tickets, and quotes. Fleets benefit from far more organization and transparency than they ever had before.

Bringing Guido Into Action

As of April 2024, Guido has successfully launched their app across all markets in Switzerland, offering service in French, German, and Italian.

So far, fleet managers and garages appreciate Guido for its efficiency. The app works far better than pilots before; uptake has been increasing. Garages have used Guido in 60 interventions, with 117 users and 400 vehicles registered.

Of course, the platform is still in its infancy. Giacomo and Francesco recognize that this is just the MVP, and they're using the feedback from early adopters to craft a roadmap for the rest of the project.

For them, many of the key learnings have come from the app development process. Within SAG, Giacomo says, “I see us again working in no-code.” and goes on to say it would be “So useful for many departments here.”

When you can bring products to market that quickly, creating a spinoff project like Guido becomes a no-brainer. As he alluded to, it’s more efficient than running the project internally.

Instead, SAG can empower ambitious members of their company like Giacomo and Francesco to create a lean startup that solves an important market inefficiency in a matter of weeks.

The best part?

Putting your employees at the helm of what basically amounts to a brand-new company is incredibly motivating. They have a vested interest in seeing the startup succeed. Meanwhile, an enterprise like SAG benefits from creating a new company with its own valuation.

It’s a paradigm shift in approach for enterprises looking to grow quickly.

If you’re interested in seeing how no-code can transform your next project, reach out to us for strategic advice.