Van leasing brokerage company Vanarama said it will focus on developing technologies such as machine learning, in an attempt to improve customer-facing IT and build more efficient credit checking systems.
Speaking to Computerworld UK, Vanarama chief technology officer Jamie Buchanan explained that the company is working on a number of projects to try and target new customers and help get more deals to finalisation once people enter its sales funnel.
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This includes improvements in personalisation and matching, meaning customers coming to the site can immediately filter out their search to vehicles they are eligible to lease.
Vanarama has also developed a pre-scoring tool for credit checks, allowing customers to search for relevant vehicles without having to go through the entire checking process.
Buchanan said: “The idea is to give customers the ability to compare the market for finance funders and products instantly from their sofa, but without leaving a footprint on their credit file, a kind of pre-score.
“We work with various data providers to gather a wide range of publicly available data, we combine this with our own in-house data models. We are working on these constantly.”
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By GlobalDataVanarama is also exploring the use of Amazon Web Services’ machine learning development suite SageMaker “to make our existing models and algorithms more accurate and near real-time”, Buchanan said.
Buchanan also spoke of bringing the IT team in-house after years of outsourcing. The IT team will be based out of Vanarama’s headquarters in Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire.
Buchanan said: “Being outside of central London meant that finding those skills tends to mean we have to search hard for people willing to take on a challenge and move out.”
Founded as a van-exclusive entity, Vanarama has been in the fleet market for cars since 2015. Vanarama are also known as the sponsors of the National League, the top division of non-league football.
