How a $2B+ automotive parts manufacturer cut dealer quote turnaround from a week to a day
A $2B+ automotive replacement parts manufacturer sells brake systems, wheel end components, steering and suspension parts, filters, belts, bearings, ignition components, cooling system parts and more through large dealer groups and distributors across North America. Every week, its commercial teams receive large RFQs with hundreds of requested parts. Many arrive with outdated part numbers, dealer specific references and incomplete descriptions.
Pricing the quote was never the hard part. Finding the right products fast enough to respond was.
The challenge
Inside sales reps spent hours working through dealer spreadsheets line by line. They searched product catalogs, checked whether part numbers had been superseded, looked up stock in the ERP, applied account pricing and assembled the final response.
On a large RFQ, most of that work was routine research and reconciliation. But it still consumed experienced sales capacity and created a bottleneck every busy period.
Dealers could wait up to a week for a completed quote. Reps spent less time selling. And when a part was matched incorrectly, the mistake could carry through to the order and come back as a return.
What we built
Preconfigured's deployment team embedded with inside sales and product specialists to automate the work between an incoming RFQ and a finished quote.
Within 7 weeks, the first agentic system was in production. Built on Preconfigured's commercial engine, it reads the dealer's email and spreadsheet, maps each request to the current product catalog, checks the ERP for availability and customer pricing, and assembles a draft quote.
Anything ambiguous is set aside for review. A request with 300 lines might arrive with 285 already resolved and only 15 needing a rep or product specialist.
The team no longer starts every quote from a blank spreadsheet. They start with a nearly finished one.
What changed
- First solution live in 7 weeks
- Dealer quote turnaround cut from up to a week to one day
- 70% less manual work per RFQ
- 90%+ of requested lines resolved automatically
The commercial team now handles more dealer requests without adding headcount. Specialists spend their time on the few parts that actually need judgment.
What's next
The same workflow is now moving downstream into order creation.
Once a dealer accepts a quote, approved line items will flow straight into the order process instead of being rekeyed into the ERP. That removes another source of delay and error between quote and fulfillment.