Industry
Automotive
Services
Implementation & Consultation
Solution
ServiceNow Scoped Application
Region
India
Maruti partnered with Aelum to replace fragmented, manual reconciliation with a unified ServiceNow platform, bringing real-time visibility, speed, and control to dealer liability management.
The Company: Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL)
Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) is India’s largest passenger vehicle manufacturer, commanding over 40% of the domestic car market. A subsidiary of Japan’s Suzuki Motor Corporation, MSIL operates multiple manufacturing facilities across India and sells through one of the country’s most extensive dealer networks. With a commitment to making mobility accessible and reliable for millions of Indians, Maruti Suzuki manages a vast, complex dealer ecosystem making efficient dealer account management and liability reconciliation a critical operational priority at scale.
The Challenge
When a dealer was terminated, MSIL’s liability reconciliation process demanded coordination across 40+ departments each operating in isolation with no shared platform, no standardised format, and no real-time visibility. The result was a heavily manual, error-prone cycle that stretched reconciliation timelines and placed an enormous coordination burden on the admin team. There primary challenges were:
- Fragmented and Siloed Process: Each of 40+ departments calculated and communicated dealer liabilities separately using offline methods like emails and spreadsheets, with no standardised format or central repository.
- Weeks-Long Reconciliation Delays: Manual coordination and repeated follow-ups meant gathering all liability data after a dealer termination could take days to weeks, slowing account closures.
- High Risk of Errors & Duplicate Entries: Repeated offline handling of figures increased the likelihood of incorrect amounts, missed submissions, or duplicated entries affecting the final liability total.
- No Real-Time Consolidated Visibility: Management had no live, centralised view of a dealer’s total liability position; decisions were made on incomplete or stale data.
- Lack of Accountability & Audit Trail: Without a structured system, there was no way to track which department submitted what, when, or identify departments that had not responded.
- Manual Reporting: Generating consolidated reports per dealer, per cycle, or at parent level was entirely manual, time-intensive, and prone to inconsistency.
The Goal
To replace fragmented, manual liability collation with a centralised, automated platform where all departments submit, revise, and track dealer liabilities in real time giving management instant, accurate visibility across every cycle, region, and dealer channel, with zero dependency on email-based coordination.
The Solutions
Recognising the need for a structured and automated approach to dealer liability management, Maruti Suzuki partnered with Aelum to build a purpose-built ServiceNow solution. Our team worked closely with stakeholders across departments to map existing pain points and design a governed, scalable platform tailored to Maruti’s unique dealer ecosystem. The key solutions delivered were:
- Custom Scoped Application & Data Model on ServiceNow: A dedicated scoped application with custom tables for liability cycles per dealer/period and department-wise task records capturing submission amounts, remarks, and supporting documents.
- Request & Task Management: Custom request forms allow dealer admins to initiate liability cycles; department contributors submit and revise figures via structured task record forms with clear visibility of dealer details, cycle dates, and status.
- Flow Designer-Driven Process Orchestration: End-to-end lifecycle managed via Flow Designer, covering the full workflow from Draft → In Progress → Submitted → Re-submitted → Closed, with automated due dates, state transitions, and escalation triggers.
- UI Actions & UI Policies: Custom UI Actions enabling department resubmissions within the cycle window and admin due-date extensions directly from the request record. Client-side UI Policies dynamically control field visibility, mandatory fields, and action availability based on role and record state.
- Role-Based Security via ACLs: Access Control Rules restrict visibility and edit rights per user persona dealer admins, department heads, and regional contributors each operate strictly within their permitted scope.
- Automated Notifications & Escalations: Automated mailers for cycle initiation, upcoming deadline reminders, and escalations to DPM/DVM for overdue submissions; with manual ad-hoc reminder options available directly from task records.
- Document Uploads & Full Audit Trails: Departments attach supporting documents (PDF, Excel, Word) and remarks per submission. Activity Formatters log every change with timestamps, creating a complete, tamper-evident audit trail.
- Role-Specific Dashboards & Consolidated Reports: Dealer admins get a 360° view of all active and past cycles; department heads see pending tasks and historic liabilities. Reports span cycles, departments, individual dealers, and parent-level aggregations.
- Historic Data Retention & User Transfer: All liability data is preserved and searchable across cycles. On user change, historic records transfer seamlessly to the new login with no data loss.
ServiceNow Tech Stack Used For:
ServiceNow Custom Scoped Application, Flow Designer, UI Actions & UI Policies, Access Control Rules (ACLs), Notification Engine, Custom Reports & Dashboards, Activity Formatters
The Outcomes
Following the successful implementation of the Dealer Liability Management Platform, MSIL experienced a significant shift in how dealer accounts are closed moving from a weeks-long, manually driven process to a real-time, governed workflow. The platform delivered measurable improvements across efficiency, accuracy, compliance, and management visibility.
- Single Source of Truth Established: All departments and management see the same consolidated financial position for any dealer in real time, eliminating discrepancies from siloed offline processes.
- Faster Dealer Account Closures: Automated workflows and real-time aggregation reduced liability collation from weeks to hours, enabling significantly faster reconciliation and dealer account closure.
- Minimised Financial Risk: Field-level validations, a controlled resubmission process, and system-populated read-only fields eliminated duplicate entries and calculation errors from the reconciliation workflow.
- Full Transparency & Audit Readiness: Every submission is logged with timestamps, user details, remarks, and documents making accountability clear and audit requirements straightforward to satisfy.
- Higher Submission Compliance: Automated reminders and DVM/DDVM escalations ensure liability cycles are completed within the defined window, reducing overdue and missing submissions across departments.
- Data-Driven Management Visibility: Custom dashboards and pivot-table reports give leadership instant access to total liability per cycle, per dealer, and at parent level directly supporting Maruti Suzuki’s digital transformation agenda.