CASE STUDY
MERCEDES –BENZ USA:
INVESTING IN IT INFRASTRUCTURE

Executive Summary:

Mercedes‐Benz first entered the US market in 1952. MBUSA is responsible

for the sales, service and marketing of Mercedes‐Benz products in the United States.
Customer service is the top priority for everyone at MBUSA. To guarantee high quality customer service, the company’s 1200 employees provided focused support of recruitment services, marketing and sales programs, and product training to
16000 employees at 313 privately owned dealerships nationwide.

Greg Settle is currently the national manager technical services for MBUSA.

His
Option 1. Is to increase the capacity of the training centers by either offering more classes, building more classroom space at the existing training facilities or building a new separate facility to accommodate more classrooms. The benefits of this strategy are that they would continue to provide the same high‐quality training that they have in the past. The disadvantages of this option are that it can be very expensive and there is the potential that they will have to continue to provide more classrooms as technician numbers keep climbing over the long run. Option 2

Would be to pursue E‐learning as an add‐on to the already successful training received at the regional training facilities. The benefits of this option are that it is a low cost means of providing technicians with access to information on‐ demand, to receive training and support documents. This option can be implemented fairly quickly and will also eliminate the need for additional training facilities and production and distribution of supporting documentation, which include repair manuals and videotapes. With the ongoing innovation at MBUSA and model releases the e‐learning tool will provide technicians with knowledge library that is relatively easy to keep up