recently launched DealTrack123 have convinced the Batley-based
software provider to consolidate its presence both among dealers
and big brokers.
a point-of-sale system that allows commercial vehicle and private
car dealers to stream a finance proposal to the most appropriate
lessor without the need for multi-proposing deals.
Since DealTrack123’s launch, according to Frontline’s director
Andy Shuter, the number of users has grown to more than 100, with
some 14,000 applications already processed.
He said that the company was “growing very nicely in a very
depressed market”, but highlighted that because of the credit
crunch some of its existing broker clients had taken “a real
hammering last year”.
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Despite this Frontline, which developed its first product back
in 2003 specifically for finance brokers, said that it was securing
deals with some big brokers and intended to consolidate that area
of its business.
“Our dealer system has enabled us to forge partnerships with
brokers that we wouldn’t have necessarily been able to deal with in
the past, because some of the bigger brokers have their own IT
solutions. But now we can offer them a fantastic product and
several are coming to us,” he said.
The main objective, however, remains to strengthen Frontline’s
position within the dealer sector, which according to Shuter “is
where we really wanted to go in the long term”.
He said that the company has a target of 800 users by the end of
2011 and is confident that with its web-based solution it can
achieve this goal.
“With brokers it is very easy to deploy the software because
there are not so many of them. But if you look at our other target
market, with 9,000 dealers you really need to deploy technology
across the internet to do it properly, and that’s what we are
doing,” he said.
Shuter also warned that with the financial crisis and the
shortage of credit from lenders, dealers need software systems
“based on efficiency rather than volumes”.
He said: “What we are finding is that lenders don’t need dealers
to be sending them lots of applications and not write much
business. They want to monitor dealers’ statistics, their usage,
they want a certain ratio, and are therefore chopping dealers for
efficiency-related issues.”
