This month, we’ve passed a milestone that we believe takes some beating – the 100 millionth fleet transaction through epyx’s 1link Service Network, our service, maintenance and repair platform, was recorded today.

1link Service Network is now well known to almost everyone who is involved in fleet SMR but, when it was launched in 2000, many garages and fleets didn’t even have internet connections.

Quickly, however, it became the de facto method for major fleets to handle all SMR transactions with franchise dealers, independent garages and fast-fits. Today, more than four million company cars and commercial vehicles are registered on the platform, around 14,000 jobs are processed every day and the 1link family of products has grown to include vehicle acquisition, vehicle remarketing and short term hire.

1link can lay claim to being the first e-commerce platform to become widely used not just in the fleet sector but the motor industry as a whole and its impact cannot be understated. Previously, booking and authorising a service or maintenance transaction between a major fleet and its suppliers involved endless phone calls and faxing and, even then, the rejection rate for the final invoice was very high. Instead, our technology allowed the transaction to be agreed and authorised online in moments.

Today’s 1link Service Network fulfils essentially the same role as the launch product but has been continually refined and evolved to the point where it provides a degree of control that is unrivalled by any other method of handling SMR. Looking to the future, there are a range of developments underway that will see us develop the platform still further – from the arrival of electric vehicles through to the connected car. We very much intend to stay at the heart of fleet SMR and be around to celebrate our 200 millionth transaction in a few years.