Established in September 1997, Jakarta-headquartered Bussan Auto Finance is a leading motorcycle finance company commanding a strong share of the market in Indonesia. Today, the company has established a strong network comprising 105 branches and more than 100 point-of service outlets across Indonesia.

The Challenge: Managing a Distributed IT Environment

Technology plays an important role in supporting Bussan’s quest to become a leading automobile finance company in Indonesia. “My goal was to build an IT-centric infrastructure to automate the entire business — all the way from the headquarters to the branches and point-of-service outlets, as well as the automation of revenue-generating processes such as loan applications and collections,” said Andre Kurniawan, IT general manager, Bussan Auto Finance.

However, as Kurniawan explained, the distributed IT architecture in the early days presented an IT challenge in terms of managing the different servers and applications at each branch, and ultimately became an impediment to the growth of the business. Citing an example of this challenge, Kurniawan said, “Every time that Bussan had to install software updates or patches, the IT staff had to go through the extremely tedious process of visiting each branch and administering the update to every computer terminal.”

Data security was also a key concern for Bussan. In the previous distributed environment where customer data was stored on different servers at the branch level, there was always the risk of data theft and loss.

“A distributed IT environment proved to be ineffective in supporting the demands of our financing business — both in securing our customer data and in efficiently managing IT — and so it was a logical decision for us to look at revamping our IT architecture,” summed up Kurniawan.

Implementing a Citrix Application Delivery Infrastructure Solution

“After evaluating alternatives, Bussan decided on a Citrix application delivery infrastructure solution because of its proven track record, robustness, and world-class functionality,” said Kurniawan. “Among all the options we were evaluating, the Citrix solution worked best for our needs.”

In 2004, Bussan Auto Finance began with an initial deployment of 300 user licenses of Citrix Presentation Server™, and over the last two years has expanded to 1,100 user licenses across 105 branches. Presentation Server is running with Microsoft® Windows Server® 2003 on 17 HP blade servers. The implementation was undertaken by Citrix® Solution Advisor, Mitra Integrasi Informatika (MII).

At present, Bussan is using Citrix Presentation Server to provide secure, seamless delivery of 26 different applications to more than 1,100 Citrix users across Indonesia. These proprietary financing industry applications — comprising two core modules and eight sub-modules — support processes including loan bookings, collections and administration.

Bandwidth savings and improved IT efficiency

Bussan derived multiple benefits from implementing a Citrix application delivery infrastructure solution.

Bussan derided multiple benefits from implementing a Citrix application infrastructure solution. “By using Citrix Presentation Server, Bussan has been able to drastically reduce the time needed to upgrade and deliver new applications to our 105 branches from a few days previously to under 30 minutes now,” said Kurniawan. “Moreover, despite growing from 50 branches to 105 branches over the last two years, we only needed to increase our IT system infrastructure team from four people previously to five today. This is a clear result of the increased productivity brought about by Citrix’s solution.”

Because Citrix technology enables users to access applications via basic computing hardware, Bussan purchased less-expensive thin-client terminals for specific task-oriented functions such as cashier, and re-deployed its existing PCs to support heavier computing processes at the back end.

By reducing the processing levels of the IT systems, Kurniawan said that Bussan was able to extend the lifespan of its existing PCs and, hence, defer spending on new PC upgrades.

“We’re easily saving anywhere between 30 and 40 percent on bandwidth costs because Citrix technology enables Bussan employees to access computing-intensive applications over low-bandwidth connections ranging from 64 Kbps to 128 Kbps,” added Kurniawan.

Strengthened data security and improved customer accessibility

Citrix Presentation Server is secure by design, offering Bussan many ways in which to strengthen data security. By centralizing the core systems at headquarters and transmitting only screen pixels, keystrokes and mouse movements over the wire, no application data leaves the datacenter. All communications take place via an encrypted channel. The ability to centrally deliver software instead of installing it locally also ensures that PCs located at the branches are less vulnerable to IT threats such as viruses and illegal use of applications.

“Beyond the technical benefits, Citrix has also helped Bussan to strengthen our customer experience,” said Kurniawan. Previously, with the distributed model, customers who registered at a particular branch were limited to transactions at that branch only, as their data could not be shared across other locations. However, after Bussan implemented Citrix Presentation Server to centralize its systems and data, its customers now have the freedom to conduct transactions at any branch they choose.

Future Plans

Now that Presentation Server has been deployed to support all of Bussan’s branches, Kurniawan is considering as the next phase to roll out the solution to its 100 point-of-service outlets. Currently, these outlets run on manual processes. When completed, Bussan will be well on its way to further strengthening its customer experience and laying the foundation for strong growth.

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