The India map flashes on the screen. Click on Bihar. Then go deeper to the closest town to where the vehicle is and click. A list of dealers in that town with their address and telephone number pops up. All in less than a minute.

This is Ashok Leyland Ltd's (ALL) latest e-commerce initiative for spare parts. The company has already initiated B2B transactions through this portal and hopes to extend it to B2C gradually once the legalities are in place. First orders were placed on May 6 and ALL hopes to get Rs 100 crore of the Rs 250 crore spare sales target for 2000-01 through online sales.

The entire site can be split into two, explains Amol J Sandil, executive director-marketing, ALL. One offers information and knowledge about the company, dealerships, spare parts etc. while the other is for actual e-commerce. Both are equally important, he adds.

Dealerships are spread across the country and the site can be used to identify the dealer nearest to the breakdown site. More importantly, there are 40,000 parts and in many cases the same parts have different part numbers. Currently, customers are forced to shuffle through pages of catalogue to identify the suitable part. These can be easily done now, Sandil said. The e-commerce part will drastically reduce the response time for the company to supply to the dealers.

A dealer wanting a particular spare part can search for it either using the description option or through the product number. If he does not know which is the correct spare part, he can identify it using the vehicle model, engine model etc.

Once all his spare requirements are identified, he can view all that he has selected, the total cost etc and then confirm the order by giving his user name, password and dealer code. His order is instantly routed to the warehouse of his choice where a search for the spare part is initiated. If the part is available then the packaging order is immediately issued on-line and a confirmation is sent to the dealer through e-mail.

In case the particular warehouse chosen by the dealer does not have the spare part, the order is automatically routed to the next nearest warehouse which has the part. Sandil expects to reduce lead time for spares from 15 days to two days in many cases through this system.

Savings for dealers would be in the form of paper work, lower inventory holding cost due to shorter lead time, easier identification of spare parts and better customer service.

The B2C will enable customers to place orders directly. This, according to Sandil, will initially be opened to bulk customers such as STU's, fleet operator etc and then to others.