eTag and Traka have partnered up to create Traka Automotive, with an aim to bring car dealerships a complete key management solution.

The combination of eTag software for automotive dealerships and key management hardware by Traka makes for a bespoke-to-dealership key management solution to reduce overall running costs, whether it be saving time looking for keys, saving money on the re-ordering of keys or simply being able to know who had the keys to a vehicle at a particular time – for penalty charge purposes etc.

The combined customer-base of eTag and Traka already has a presence in five of the top ten UK car dealership groups. Traka Automotive will be able to offer a highly compelling key management solution to the whole of the UK dealership market before expanding abroad during 2016.

eTag previously focused its sales effort on larger prestige car dealerships. But the additional resources, flexibility and reach of Traka Automotive enables the new division to offer a key management solution to the whole market. For example, it is now possible to lease Traka hardware and pay for all software and support via monthly subscription, cutting costs for the all-in-one system significantly so that a 100-car key management system might be as low as £32 per week. Or if bought outright from capital expenditure, dealer principals could expect a return on total key management investment in less than six months.

eTag already has more than 25,000 active users of its software in more than 200 locations including 40% of Mercedes-Benz dealerships and 30% of BMW’s UK network.

Existing dealerships currently using Traka key cabinets will now be able to access the eTag software platform to unlock additional value from their existing key management investment.

Director at Traka Automotive Paul Smith said: “We believe our combined 100 plus years of industry expertise within the team, together with highly mature eTag software and world-class hardware, makes Traka Automotive the only viable key management system for automotive dealerships on the market.

“Currently dealerships without next generation key management systems see keys as a pain: they get lost and staff waste time and valuable productivity hunting for them. They also present a security risk to the business.

“Upon using our systems, we guarantee you will unlock increased productivity from sales and workshop staff. Our reporting capability will mean you’ll have confirmation at the touch of a button of who had the car when a speeding ticket or congestion charge fine was billed to the company.”

eTag and Traka are both owned by Assa Abloy.