Inchcape UK
One of the UK’s largest franchised dealer groups, Inchcape UK, has rolled out the market-leading moDel vehicle delivery and collection solution across its entire UK network to digitise the vehicle delivery process.
Inchcape UK operates around 106 retail centres in the UK via a number of main brand divisions, including Audi, BMW/MINI, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz/Smart, Toyota/Lexus and Volkswagen. Last year the company reported retail sales revenue of £2.662billion.
It delivers around 30,000 new cars annually into the corporate and business sectors, primarily to leasing companies, SMEs and brokers, using an assortment of different logistics companies and its own drivers.
However, the company has long been dissatisfied with the new car delivery process, which relies on the collection of a disparate assortment of paperwork that was easily lost, misplaced or inaccurate.
More than a year ago, Inchcape began a trial using the electronic moDel solution, initially via four tablet computers at its Volkswagen Stockport retail centre.
Following the trial’s success, the company decided to mandate the use of moDel for all new vehicle deliveries into the leasing sector, involving around 13,000 vehicles per annum and all the major leasing companies in the UK.
The results to date have been a breath of fresh air, said Gary Nicholls, Fleet Operations Director at Inchcape UK.
“Previously, we had found the vehicle delivery and collection process very frustrating. The paperwork involved often went astray, which meant people having to chase it, it was often inaccurate and the amount of time it took to manually enter onto the system was affecting our cashflow.”
“moDel has literally transformed the entire process. It now brings consistency of delivery for all our customers and our brands. And we know almost instantly once a vehicle has been successfully delivered, allowing us to close off the transaction with the leasing company more quickly. “
“This speeds up the whole process, including invoicing, which helps improve our cashflow, while our admin time has been considerably reduced.”
“We expect by around July or August this year that 100% of our deliveries into the leasing sector will be handled via moDel. We are also exploring the possibilities for our other corporate channels – for SMEs and brokers.”
“As part of an ongoing project in our Audi division, we are evaluating using the moDel portal which will allow us to load jobs onto tablet computers at a local level for deliveries into other channels, so that we can deliver the same benefits for our other corporate customers,” he said.
The new generation of moDel offers the very latest functionality and features, including improved photographic capabilities to more accurately record and assess the condition of collected vehicles, along with more detailed, but easier to use, damage reporting which can be relayed instantly to end users.
“This feature has been particularly valuable,” added Gary Nicholls, “as it removes any ambiguity about the condition of the vehicle that is being returned and identifies clearly what is, and what is not, vehicle damage.”
