The provision of data is the basis of a powerful database. It is also the key to success in making products and brands visible to potential customers. TecAlliance, the leading data specialist in the independent automotive aftermarket (IAM), brings standardized data from many leading parts manufacturers together into one of the world’s most commonly used replacement parts catalogs. For two years, the Gates Corporation, a global diversified manufacturer of industrial and automotive products, has been supplying replacement parts data for the Mexican automotive aftermarket through the Mexican edition of the TecDoc Catalogue.

Since 2013, TecAlliance de Mexico has supported market participants in the precise identification of vehicles and quick search for the right part. The Mexican edition of the well-known international replacement parts catalogue now includes more than 400 brands from over 150 parts manufacturers. “The solution provides convenience functions, including search by repair system, by part number, by Original Equipment number and a comprehensive graphic search. We have collected and standardized the information of many parts manufacturers and made it available to the market in just one platform,” explains Fernando Murguia, Managing Director Mexico/Regional Sales Director Mexico at TecAlliance.

Gates Corporation is a U.S. parts manufacturer of a variety of hoses, belts, pulleys and drives. As one of the world’s largest manufacturing companies, it supplies automotive parts to more than 30 OE manufacturers worldwide and brings the same quality, reliability, and performance to its OE-equivalent aftermarket parts.

In recent years, the independent automotive aftermarket in Mexico has shown a high growth rate in the vehicle parc, offering parts manufacturers, wholesalers and retail shops excellent opportunities for expansion. Gates Corporation has been doing business in Mexico for over 60 years, combining a pioneering spirit with vast market knowledge.

Regional distinctions require specific formats and procedures

“One of the challenges we faced was transferring our catalog data to our partners in a unified standard. This is still a challenge, since we are most likely going to be delivering data to a country with dual standards. However, with TecAlliance we have started on a path that we expect to see the market follow, which is TecDoc,”describes Jonathan Amo, Director Global Aftermarket Catalog & Product Application at Gates Corporation.

The Mexican edition of the TecDoc Catalogue covers the global TecDoc format as well as the AutoCare™ ACES and PIES format for the North and Central American markets. It also includes replacement parts information from the OptiCat Catalogue, one of the leading spare part catalogues in the USA. The Data Migration Service supports manufacturers in migrating TecDoc standard data to the Auto Care ACES/PIES standard or from ACES/PIES to the TecDoc standard. This enables them to open up new markets and expand their geographic coverage.

“TecAlliance has a very simple solution that brings the data to customers in one format: product applications, product information, images, dimensions, and other rich data in a platform that takes little to no programming experience,” Amo sums up. “TecAlliance brings so many solutions to emerging businesses that want monthly updates with the latest data from their trading partners.”

Numerous improvements thanks to fewer requests and constant updating of data

Gates’ data has been available in the Mexican edition of the TecDoc Catalogue since the beginning of 2019. The company’s vision is to always be committed to the customer’s success and internal process improvements. “One of the biggest benefits is efficiency gains; this leads to fewer requests from trading partners. They now get a full data feed to their systems from TecAlliance. This has allowed our product teams to focus more strongly on development strategies to support the market.  It has been great to see so many customers transitioning into the TecAlliance systems that help them to pursue the market more effectively,” explains Amo.

Constant updating of data represents a great challenge for any parts manufacturer in the Mexican market. TecAlliance de Mexico provides support in the establishment of processes and is in constant contact with them. “Our company process has improved drastically; it is one standard way of doing things with one process document. The systems TecAlliance provide make it an easy process with step-by-step business rules. They eliminate the struggle of working on multiple spreadsheets through the region making a substandard data set,” says Amo.

The Mexican edition of the TecDoc Catalogue is free of charge for parts manufacturers, wholesalers, retail shops and workshops until the end of December 2021. The catalogue is fully translated into Spanish and uses automotive technical language common to the repair sector in Mexico.