High-performance e-business solutions from Colt

Download this Delticom AG case study as a PDF

Highly available IT services for Europe’s largest online tyre dealer.

To ensure its online dealer platforms and telephone hotlines are accessible around the clock, Delticom AG, based in Hanover (Germany), relies on services from Colt Telecom. The tyre expert provides service hotlines for 26 different countries, and all calls are forwarded by Colt to call centres commissioned by Delticom.

For end users and workshops throughout Europe, the Delticom website www.ReifenDirekt.de (German-language site)  is their first port of call when it comes to finding tyres for cars, delivery vehicles, motorcycles, off-road vehicles and heavy-goods vehicles.

The enormous product range available on the website includes more than 25,000 tyre types from over 100 different manufacturers. Thanks to its consistently competitive prices, Delticom AG has achieved some fantastic online sales figures, making it the European market leader. The company also supplies various other automotive components, such as replacement parts, roof-rack systems and engine oil, via its 56 online shops to both private and commercial customers. Delticom’s online presence helped it achieve sales of EUR 129 million in 2005.

The secret behind Delticom’s success is the technical web solutions and the telephone services that it has in place. These solutions represent an essential customer interface for the Delticom online dealer network. The servers that host the websites were initially located at the company’s premises when Delticom first entered the market, although it soon became clear that this was not the ideal solution. “We actually had our own server room, but it didn’t fulfil our needs in terms of our significant security requirements relating to fire protection and access authorisation”, reports Thomas Rist, Project Manager at Delticom. “This is why we started looking for an alternative to protect our everyday business operations.” After all, reliable server operation was the top priority. As Delticom had already enjoyed a long and successful business partnership with the Hanover branch of the pan-European IT provider for its telephone and Internet connections, the decision to place its servers in the care of one of Colt’s highly secure data centres was an easy one. “

Our entire online presence, including our content management and payment systems, are managed on these servers”, explains Rist. “During peak times, such as the start of summer or winter when the demand for tyres skyrockets, we sometimes record up to 8000 hits per minute.” According to Rist, this is why the decision to move the servers to the Colt data centre was the right one, particularly as the telecoms partner was also happy to tailor the solution to Delticom’s needs. “Colt is very flexible in this respect”, says Rist approvingly. “Even after just a few brief discussions, the necessary measures were always put in place to ensure our needs were met as quickly as possible.”

Recently, for example, the bandwidth for the server connections to the Internet has been increased as required, and the power supply has been enhanced to improve performance.