Arnold Clark

Founded in 1954, the firm has expanded to 200 dealerships across Scotland and England, with over 20,000 cars in stock at any one time. Conscious that today’s customers expect business to be even easier, with not only a next-generation digital experience, but impeccable service in-branch, Arnold Clark has invested millions in the latest technology. The firm also recently enlisted the help of Virgin Media Business, as Arnold Clark’s CTO, Derek Rose, explains.

“As part of our IT journey, we brought a number of our businesses into a new, purpose-built, premises in Glasgow and as a result we had to relocate our primary data centre to this new state-of-the-art facility,” says Derek. “We took the opportunity to invest in a new technology hub that will enable us to build a world class online customer experience. To bring this vision to life, we carefully chose Virgin Media Business to help.”

Arnold Clark already knew the solution it required, namely Cisco Hyperflex; a hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). However, as the firm’s own engineers didn’t have the relevant experience, Derek was sure Virgin Media Business would be an ideal trusted partner.

Derek says: “In the move to the new data centre, we knew we had to look at public and private cloud, scalability and a high performance platform to give the customer the ultimate online experience. Cisco Hyperflex was chosen as it would give us the ability to react to our business demands with pace and confidence. However, Arnold Clark doesn’t have a rich Cisco skillset, so we were on a learning journey and knew that Virgin Media Business was the go-to organisation, in Scotland, for this specialist area. After purchasing the Cisco tech, we arranged an off-site ‘lab experience’ with Virgin Media Business staff. It was important for Arnold Clark engineers to get hands-on and have that expert guidance and support.”

With Virgin Media Business’s help, Arnold Clark’s complex migration is due to be completed on time and on budget. Meanwhile customers are benefitting from the enhanced capabilities of Cisco Hyperflex, which is enabling one of Arnold Clark’s most unique customer experiences.

Derek says: “When buying a car, the journey more often begins online. When our customers then decide on the car they can contact the relevant branch for more information and using technology our Product Geniuses can make a more detailed personalised video of the car and its features, which really builds on the digital experience and ultimately enables our customers to make a more informed choice on how they want to proceed.”

Naturally, embracing the digital future has added to Arnold Clark’s data storage requirements. The relocated data centre has it covered.

Derek says: “The facility is really fantastic, offering a working environment that everyone can thrive and excel in, but also meeting our additional technology needs. For the immediate future we are indeed fully prepared. But technology changes so rapidly, as do customer’s needs. We are still on an exciting journey to deliver the best retail experience possible. Arnold Clark’s customer value is ‘Easy to do business with.’ We’ll never forget that it’s technology and partnering with organisations like Virgin Media Business which makes things so easy.”

"Arnold Clark has been a recognised name in car sales and service in Scotland for many years and like most industries they recognise the shift in customer engagement. Customers no longer turn up at a shop or branch to negotiate deals, they choose to interact digitally with suppliers and complete all their own due diligence online.”

Virgin Media Business Head of Sales Scotland, Christian Beveridge