Open Text Drives New Nissan Business Infrastructure

Nissan Motor Company is firing up a new business structure in its UK offices to help improve its loan approval and management efficiency. The system, based on Open Text's (Waterloo, Ontario) Livelink Intranet, will enable the electronic capture of signed documents, such as leasing and rental agreements, via a fax and into a workflow. Nissan dealers will be able to process finance applications from the showroom within minutes, rather than hours. The dealers will be able to access documents for validating contracts, and can hold those documents online for future comparison between the original and the faxed copy. Stuart Minty, operations director for UK-based Nissan Finance Limited, sat down with

Coopers Lybrand Kinesis "with "a concept and an extremely tight deadline." "Of all the candidates," he said, "Open Text impressed us most." Key points in the sell, he added, were Livelink's open architecture, and the ability to modify the user interface to "have the same look and feel" as Nissan's other intranet applications. The system will be initially deployed in the division's UK offices, and future expansion across Europe is being discussed.