The Car People 

Gaining Control of the vehicle buying process

Fast growing UK-based The Car People operate three car supermarkets north of England, in Wakefield, Sheffield and Manchester. Each location is between six and ten acres in size and the company sells more than 17,000 cars per year.

Situation

The Car People were finding that with increased company growth, inconsistent manual processes were slowing them down. “On Monday we’d sit down and produce a spreadsheet of cars we wanted buyers to acquire. We’d then print this and put it in their trays or email them, but it might have taken them a few days before they’d see it,” says Jonathan Allbones, Sales Director at The Car People.

Because there was only one list printed at the beginning of the week, there was no visibility if a vehicle was brought off this list and vehicle duplications often occurred. Stock entry sheets allowed buyers to document what they brought, and they would have to sit and type this out at the end of every day and email it back to the office. Once received, this information would have to be manually re-entered into a central repository by office administrators which took up a lot of time. “We were handling about 5-6 buyers’ sheets which made it easy to get things wrong as we couldn’t see the complete picture,” says Jonathan.

Solution

Automation provides more visibility of processes

The Car People had heard of Netresult and met with them to see how AutoCheck could be applied to automate many of their manual processes and improve business efficiency. “Other systems we looked at were quite off the shelf – they were inspection systems but that’s all they did. Netresult came in and explained the scope of AutoCheck, and it soon became apparent that we could automate more than just our buying process”.

“Netresult immersed themselves in our business and understood our needs and then went away and configured parts of AutoCheck to completely fit what we wanted,” says Jonathan.

While the company’s first priority was the management of their buying process, with AutoCheck they were also able to manage inspections, logistics, remittances and other related business processes. “Our buyers on the road use AutoCheck on PDAs. They can access buying lists stating the cars we want them to buy and those we want them to avoid and then do inspections on vehicles, which enables us to understand what they are buying, what conditions the vehicles are in, where they have come from and how much they spend on them. This allows us to then decide which branch we want to allocate this vehicle to”. Staff synchronise their PDAs regularly which means the information is constantly up-to-date.

“Our data is dynamic and AutoCheck ensures we don’t buy duplicates or too many one thing that would negatively affect us.”

AutoCheck positions company for future growth

AutoCheck has eliminated obstacles, helped support the speed of company growth and streamlined buying processes.

By providing more visibility of the entire car buying process, vehicle allocations, transport and logistics can now be planned more efficiently because data can be imported directly into the company’s stock management system. There is no longer a need for manual re-keying of data which has eliminated the errors associated with this. Jonathan says AutoCheck allows him to login in at anytime and see all of the vehicles they have brought, even those that haven’t been allocated to one of their supermarkets yet.

“AutoCheck updates our vehicle lists automatically and if staff try and buy vehicles that we don’t actually want, the system gives them a warning. Having a dynamic list is the biggest benefit. We have much more visibility over the entire process and don’t have to re-key or manually process anything.”

“Netresult really understood our needs and adapted AutoCheck to suit us. Their understanding of the motor industry and the processing of vehicles meant they could interpret our needs and suggest a solution to suit.”

About Us

Netresult Mobility is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner which provides mobile computing solutions to help all parts of the vehicle supply chain, from wholesale financers right through to consumers, improve the speed and quality of their decisions about vehicles. We pride ourselves on providing innovative and efficient solutions to the automotive industry. Whether it’s a turnkey or bespoke solution, our development is carried out in consultation with our customers. We understand your business and develop solutions to meet your needs. Our mobile solutions are aimed at addressing inefficiencies and providing you with competitive advantage. We adopt a low risk approach to developing and providing solutions by only using proven technology and ‘best practice’ project management methodologies.

PROJECT DETAILS

Category: Case Studies

Client name: The Car People

Business Issues: Manual cumbersome business processes slowing growth. Limited visibility throughout the buying process

Solution: Implementation of Netresult's AutoCheck vehicle inspection solution

Outcome: Greater visibility of the entire buying process, significantly reduced manual processes