Agent Commerce Transformation at Volkswagen Group: ONE Platform at the Core

How Volkswagen redefined automotive retail through its Agent Commerce strategy—unifying dealers, customers, and brands within the ONE Group digital ecosystem.

Volkswagen Group is one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers, spanning Volkswagen, Audi, Škoda, SEAT/CUPRA, and Porsche. The vision: a unified, customer-centric commerce model that connects all sales channels and partners through one digital backbone, the ONE Group Platform.

Volkswagen set out to shift from a traditional dealer model to an agent model. Customers purchase directly from the manufacturer. Dealers act as agents who handle test drives, transactions, and handovers. They no longer buy inventory or negotiate prices, and instead receive a fixed handling fee:

• Complex data flows between OEM, dealers, and digital channels
• Fragmented inventory and order management
• Limited end-to-end customer visibility
• Inconsistent pricing and experiences across brands

Volkswagen leveraged the ONE.Konzern Business Platform (ONE.KBP) as the central data and process layer. Originally built for groupwide collaboration, it evolved to support procurement, logistics, production, finance, quality, and commerce. Core integrations for the agent model:

• Centralized Inventory Visibility: real-time stock and configurations across brands
• Unified Transaction Flow: dealer and online orders feed one central system
• Transparent Pricing Engine: standardised manufacturer pricing, no negotiation
• Customer Data Ownership: continuous journey visibility up to point of sale
ONE connects over a million users and underpins the Group’s move to direct-to-customer engagement.

Customers can browse, configure, and order online or via dealers with the same pricing and workflows. Order status, fulfilment, and handover steps are synchronised across channels. Market specifics for tax, legal, and pricing are managed centrally and applied locally.

Sales, IT, Finance, and Dealer Operations work from shared data and standardised processes. This setup enables:

• Common KPIs across brands and markets
• Faster rollout of market adaptations
• Consistent reporting on order intake, stock, and delivery

Cross-functional steering aligns business and technology. Governance covers:

• GDPR-compliant consent and identity management
• Data lineage and pricing transparency
• Market readiness reviews with Legal, Security, and Compliance

• Unified data, inventory, and pricing across brands via ONE
• Standardised D2C sales workflows under the agent model in FRA, ESP, IT, CZ, GER
• Reduced dealer inventory risk and improved order transparency for VW, Cupra, Audi, Porsche, and Skoda
• Consistent omnichannel journeys from web to dealership across various brands and different countries
• Faster market rollouts with a reusable onboarding playbook for other markets