Debbie Fox, commercial director, epyx

When it comes to major fleets that sell thousands of cars and vans every year, you’ll probably agree that the term ‘disposal’ is inadequate to describe the complex and varied processes they need to complete.

Instead, it’s better to think of the whole undertaking as something like ‘end of contract stock management’ which starts months before the vehicle contract ends in order to liquify those assets in the most efficient and effective way possible.

Increasingly, we’re seeing a desire by fleets to automate as many of those steps as possible and the amount of use that is being made of the automation options within our 1link Disposal Network is increasing noticeably month-on-month.

How do these tools work? The key is to recognise that the platform is not a simple sales tool but a central inventory management system with automatic task management that ensures everything needed to maximise vehicle resale prices is completed efficiently. From there, you can recognise which tasks are candidates for automation within your processes.

1link Disposal Network provides sophisticated options for auto pricing, auto-routing, auto sales channel allocation and auto vehicle movements that can be aligned to your current policies. Depending on the profile of your stock, as many or as few of these tools can be used as needed. The potential for automation is especially maximised where fleets are disposing of many similar vehicles through a number of recognised channels. Here, the need for manual intervention can be almost completely removed and managing stock through the end of contract process made easier and faster. Also, the platform is agnostic in terms of the options you choose.

Why is interest in automation increasing? In our view, it’s very much a post-pandemic development. There is a desire to increase digitalisation across a wide spread of fleet processes and disposal is very much part of this. Fleets are looking for new and effective technology, and what we offer here is proven and effective. Our experience is that, as with any automation process, most users start by trying out small tasks and as it becomes clear that the digital tools can be trusted, grow in confidence and use them to handle larger and larger volumes of crucial tasks.

This is a trend that we are expecting to see increase over the course of the year and, in future blogs, will be looking at each of our automation tools in more detail. In the meantime, if you’d like to find out more, please get in touch.

To find out more about 1link Disposal Network, click here